Email of the day on the MidPoint Danger Line

Thank you for your kind words and yes, the whole tribe are thriving. Thanks also for this question which remains a topic of conversation at The Chart Seminar. Incidentally, it has been a bit of a challenge to secure a venue for next month’s Chart Seminar in Melbourne, but we finally signed a contract with the Mercure in Treasury Gardens today. I’m really looking forward to revisiting my old stomping ground, having a coffee on a Lygon Street and, most of all, spending some quality time with subscribers.

Long-term themes review March 7th 2018

FullerTreacyMoney has a very varied group of people as subscribers. Some of you like to receive our views in written form, while others prefer the first-person experience of listening to the audio or watching daily videos.

The Big Picture Long-Term video, posted every Friday, is aimed squarely at anyone who does not have the time to read the daily commentary but wishes to gain some perspective on what we think the long-term outlook holds. However, I think it is also important to have a clear written record for where we lie in terms of the long-term themes we have identified, particularly as short-term market machinations influence perceptions.

Bigger U.S. Auctions in Shorter Time Seen Boosting Yields

This note by Brian Chappatta for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Bond traders have to contend with both larger auction sizes and a condensed schedule when the U.S. Treasury sells $28 billion of three-year notes and $21 billion of 10-year notes on March 12. To JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategists, that combination signals a weak reception. Last month’s offerings, the first since 2009 to increase in size, priced at yields higher than the market was indicating heading into the sales. The 3- and 10-year auctions are usually spaced out over two days, but when they came on the same day in December, yields also missed higher.

Bull markets don’t often end because demand evaporates. They usually end because the surge in prices encourages supply into the market and that eventually overwhelms demand. There is no shortage of new supply, in fact the USA’s decision to double its deficit is the latest in a long line of issuers who have been locking in low rates. The fact that one of the biggest buyers, the Fed, is now a net seller, should be giving investors pause when thinking about the value represented by bonds at close to 3%.

Autodesk's results

This note from Bloomberg research may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Autodesk continues to show steady progress in shifting to a subscription model, which has boosted its recurring sales. Subscriber additions continued to be aided by its discounting and other promotions for converting legacy license users to subscription offerings. The company has bundled its products to boost annual recurring revenue (ARR) and average revenue per subscriber (ARPS). While upsell of subscription products to its maintenance subscribers is aiding sales momentum, new cloud products are unlikely to be a growth driver in the near term.

Subscription business models have been growing in popularity among technology companies since Adobe first explored the concept about five years ago. Historically technology has been a highly cyclical business with each new iteration of the product or software resulting in a surge in sales which subsequently led to declines as sales growth tapered off while support costs rose. The cycle would be repeated with each new product offering and this also put a lot of pressure on companies to come up with a new iteration that was measurably better than the last to justify the additional outlay.

Email of the day on the potential for downtrends

Your recent assessments of the markets appear to be that a period of ranging is likely to be followed by markets going up again. Of course, whilst no one knows what the future will be, I wonder why you don't see the greater likelihood of markets turning down after some consolidation. With the amount of US debt increasing, interest rates increasing, and stock market levels already high by historical standards, are you not more concerned that markets, being forwards looking, might be more likely to head down than up? Esp. since markets struggle when interest rates go above 3%? I appreciate your talk of share rotation, but a rising tide lifts all boats and surely the opposite is true when markets tank?

Thank you for these questions which I think everyone asks from time to time. For someone in our position of attempting to forecast the outlook for markets the most important thing we have to remember is that markets rise for longer than they fall but when they fall they often do so quite quickly. However, they do not fall without first exhibiting topping characteristics.

Walmart Tumbles After Slowing Online Growth Jolts Investors

This article by Matthew Boyle for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

At the same time, Walmart Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon is trying to convert the company’s brick-and-mortar shoppers into online customers, who spend almost twice as much overall and seek out higher-priced items.

At Walmart’s e-commerce unit, sales rose 23 percent last quarter. That’s less than half the pace of previous periods. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based company had been getting a tailwind from its acquisition of Jet.com, an online upstart that it bought in 2016. Still, the company maintained its full-year forecast for online sales growth of about 40 percent.

The company needs to widen its e-commerce base, especially among younger and professional demographics, said Neil Saunders, managing director of research firm GlobalData Retail.

Wal-Mart is spending a lot of money on its ecommerce platform but the cold reality is that its backend is antiquated compared to that offered by Amazon, eBay or Etsy. Maybe it is focusing on selling its own products over those of third party sellers but if that is the case one has to question why it has been marketing to Amazon sellers so aggressively.

Reckitt Benckiser Sees Pricing Squeeze After Worst Year Ever

This article by Thomas Buckley for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

In an effort to sharpen Reckitt Benckiser’s focus on brands such as Strepsils and Mucinex cold remedies, Kapoor has moved to separate the company’s home-care and health businesses. Reckitt also became a leader in infant nutrition with the acquisition of Mead Johnson Nutrition Co. last year.

On Monday, it increased its forecast for synergies from the deal to about $300 million from $250 million. This year’s savings will only “slightly exceed” additional infrastructure expenses associated with the new health and home-and-hygiene business units, the company said.

Morgan Stanley analysts led by Richard Taylor described the company’s outlook as conservative.

A question someone asked of Charlie Munger at last week’s Daily Journal AGM stuck with me over the weekend. It was how he thought the established brands would fare with increased competition from the likes of Costco and Amazon who are pioneering their own products often in direct competition. His answer was that white- labelling and own-brand selling would have an effect, but if one were to take a long-term view the established brands would still have value.

Silicon Valley's Tax-Avoiding, Job Killing, Soul-Sucking Machine

Thanks to a subscriber for this article by Scott Galloway for Esquire which may be of interest. Here is a section:

content machine, dominating the majority of phones worldwide. Now “what’s on your mind?”

Four hundred hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, which means that Google has more video content than any other entity on earth. It also controls the operating system on two billion Android devices. But AT&T needs to divest Adult Swim?

Perhaps Trump is right that the merger of AT&T and Time Warner is unreasonable, but if so, then we should have broken up the Four ten years ago. Each of the Four, after all, wields a harmful monopolistic power that leverages market dominance to restrain trade. But where is the Department of Justice? Where are the furious Trump tweets? Convinced that the guys on the other side of the door are Christlike innovators, come to save humanity with technology, we’ve allowed our government to fall asleep at the wheel.

Capitalism trends towards concentration as the large and strong consume the weak. Despite claims to the contrary, it in the interests of company executives to ensure the company they work for comes out on top by whatever means necessary. It is rare in the extreme that fines levied, after the fact, match the benefit from ensuring a competitor’s demise. Therefore, large companies, that dominate their respective niches, tend to persist for as long as they retain the hunger to dominate.

South Korea's Economy Shudders After Growth Spurt

This article by Kwanwoo Jun for the Wall Street Journal may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

South Korea’s surprisingly weak economic performance in the last three months of 2017 isn’t cause for concern but does support the case for a cautious stance on central bank policy, according to economists and bank officials.

The economy ended its streak of outperforming expectations in the last quarter by recording its first quarter-on-quarter contraction since the global financial crisis.

That resulted in growth for the year—at 3.1%—coming in just below the government’s 3.2% target, but above 2016’s expansion of 2.8%. Markets on Thursday brushed aside the result, with the Kospi jumping 1% to reach record highs.

Still, the result will temper recent optimism about the economic outlook, while likely dispelling any idea at the Bank of Korea about raising rates until much later in the year. In November, the central bank raised rates for the first time in more than six years.

South Korea is the world’s 11th largest economy and it did not grow in the last quarter of 2017. This was explained by the surge in investment in the early part of year that eased back in the latter part of year but the failure to growth was an anomaly amid strong numbers for the rest of the global economy. Domestic consumption is expected to pick up this year and the Olympics may add some tourist revenue so a recession may be avoided but it bears monitoring nonetheless

Snap Bulls Bring on Bevy of Upgrades After Its First Beat

This article by Beth Mellor and Jeran Wittenstein for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Snap Inc.’s first earnings beat as a public company, prompted at least five upgrades from analysts after the social-media company reported fourth-quarter revenue and daily active users ahead of estimates. The results blindsided short sellers who prompted upgrades from at least five analysts, and garnered a Street-high price target of $24 from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Analysts lauded the reacceleration of daily active user growth and advertising revenue growth, better-than-expected average revenue per user and the impact of the app redesign.

Still, some remained skeptical, with Morgan Stanley noting the potential that revenue trends could slow in 2018, while Susquehanna downgraded the stock amid competitive pressures from Facebook Inc.’s Instagram.

Snap climbed as much as 33 percent at 9:45 a.m. in New York, trading above its $17-per share IPO price for the first time since July. Here’s a roundup of what analysts are saying about Snap’s results.

Snap is used primarily by teens and tweens so it has appeal as a portal to the social interactions and advertising models of young people. Meanwhile Instagram is battling the company as it attempts to copy some of the Snap’s features while trying to appeal to the younger generation.

iPhone 'Super Cycle' Pronounced Dead as Handset Market Tumbles

This article by Alistair Barr for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

“The super cycle is dead,” Steven Milunovich, an analyst at UBS, wrote in a note to investors on Friday. Apple shares slipped 2.9 percent to $163 at 12:18 p.m. in New York, leaving the stock down 3.7 percent so far, this year.

To adjust, Apple is now focusing on its huge installed base of devices and how to make more money from that -- rather than selling a lot more phones each year, Milunovich added.

Indeed, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook highlighted late Thursday that Apple has 1.3 billion devices in use now, an increase of 30 percent in two years. The company is trying to sell more services through these devices, along with more accessories and related gadgets. Apple services revenue jumped 18 percent in the fourth quarter, while sales of other products, like the Watch and AirPods, jumped 36 percent.

Milunovich and other analysts quizzed Apple executives on the slowing phone upgrade cycle, during a conference call late Thursday.

“You have an installed base that’s 20 percent-plus higher, and a unit growth that’s relatively flat, which would suggest that your upgrade rate is going down, or your replacement cycle is elongating. And I’m wondering whether you agree with that,” said Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein.

Cook advised against looking at 90 days of sales. “The far bigger thing is to look over a longer period of time and customer satisfaction and engagement and number of active devices are all a part of that.”

Everyone on earth is going to have at least mobile device at some point in the next couple of decades. However, they are not all going to be paying $1000 for the handset. That privilege is reserved for the fashion conscious and those with deep pockets mostly in the OECD and China. For more than half the global population much cheaper handsets, often running Android, will prevail.

How have traditional safe haven assets been performing?

Three points agitated investors on the 30th and contributed the largest decline on the stock market seen in months. Amazon, JPMorgan and Berkshire Hathaway announcing a plan to reduce healthcare costs for their employees hit the healthcare sector, there were fears that President Trump’s State of the Union address would focus on trade, the Dollar and China but the speech was noticeably light on these topics. Meanwhile any investment manager looking to sustain a 60/40 split in bonds to equities had until today’s close rebalance some of their overweight equities into bonds.

Veteran subscribers will be familiar with my refrain from the Big Picture Long-Term videos, since at least September, that we are in the 3rd Psychological Perception Stage of this impressive almost decade-long cyclical bull market.

Imaginary Taxes Can Have Real Consequences

This article by Matt Levine at Bloomberg does a good job of explaining the different impact on various companies of the tax changes. Here is a section:

Deemed repatriation is significantly less fictional than remeasurement of deferred tax assets. Under the old tax system, U.S. companies were taxed on all of the income they earned everywhere, but only when they brought it back to the U.S.; they could defer taxes on foreign income by keeping it offshore. The new tax system is mostly territorial -- U.S. companies pay U.S. taxes on U.S. income and foreign taxes on foreign income -- but there is a one-time "toll tax" on foreign income previously earned abroad. That tax is at a much lower rate than the old (or new) corporate tax rate -- 8 or 15.5 percent instead of 35 (or 21) percent -- but it has to be paid over the next eight years, whether or not the money is actually brought back onshore. So, for companies that were planning to keep their foreign profits offshore forever, this is an actual new cost. (For companies like Apple Inc. that had already accounted for the cost of bringing the money back at 35 percent, though, it creates an accounting profit.) American Express really will have to pay that $2 billion of taxes over the next eight years. Perhaps it would have ended up paying more than that anyway under the old regime, if it had brought the money back, but it will definitely pay that much under the new regime. So, it needs to find $2 billion, and that is money that it cannot pay out to shareholders.

Apple has decided to bring its money home so it will pay the tax on it and is hoping to boost its domestic image by hiring more people and building a new campus much as Amazon is doing. For Citigroup the tax code change is an accounting fillip but nothing more, while for companies like Amex it is rather meaningful.

Stocks Jump to Records, Bonds Fall on Tax Benefits

This article by Kailey Leinz and Sarah Ponczek for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Taxes drove much of the gains. Financials were strong after Bank of America Corp. beat estimates and indicated that it could benefit from the U.S. tax overhaul by reducing pressure to cut future costs. And Apple Inc. climbed after saying it will bring hundreds of billions of dollars back to the U.S. from overseas to invest in jobs and facilities.

“We’re all really trying to figure out the real impact off tax reform on some of the major sectors,” said Jamie Cox, a managing partner for Harris Financial Group in Richmond, Virginia. “Financials in particular have been in the news because you’ve seen some weird things with some of their deferred tax assets being reported in earnings. I think a lot of people misunderstood and don’t understand how the deferred tax assets work, and so they’re seeing these massive charges that the banks are taking as a result of tax reform and they can’t see too clearly into the future about how much the impact on tax reform is going to have on their bottom line three quarters from now.”

And

“A lot of the move that we’ve been seeing has been just the beginning,” said John Stoltzfus, chief market strategist at Oppenheimer & Co. “It’s hard to quantify, but we see some evidence of bull market bears as well as skeptics of this bull market finally beginning to capitulate. And when that capitulation starts, it’s a process.”

Buy and the dip strategies have been programmed into algorithmic systems so that every time the VIX index rallies more than 2 points the flow of funds moves back into equities and out of bonds. This is a very short-term example of how risk parity strategies are maneuvering in the current environment.

BofA Warns Bull Market Capitulation Has Begun as Bears Surrender

This article by Blaise Robinson for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here it is in full:

Here comes another sign that the few remaining bears are finally giving up.

Investment flows going into stock funds worldwide jumped to $24 billion in the week to Jan. 10 - the sixth largest weekly inflows ever - while $13 billion went into corporate and emerging markets bonds, according to strategists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, who said the data show the market is reaching “maximum bullish” levels.

“Peak positioning on its way, but we expect asset prices to overshoot first,” the strategists led by Michael Hartnett wrote in a note, saying that to get a proper “sell signal,” they still need to see fund managers’ cash levels falling below 4.3 percent in their next monthly survey, as well as further inflows into high-yield bonds, emerging market equities and emerging market debt in the coming weeks.

Among recent signals that stocks are overheating: the proportion of bullish participants in the American Association of Individual Investors hit a seven-year high earlier this month, most major equity benchmarks around the world trade at overbought levels, and the S&P 500 has reached its most expensive level since 2002.

Intel Unveils 'Breakthrough' Quantum Computer

This article by Joel Hruska for Extreme Tech may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

The new system is codenamed Tangle Lake, a reference to an Alaskan lake chain and the tangled state of the electrons themselves. Quantum computers are extremely different from standard (classical) computers, and can tackle problems modern classical machines can’t handle. The reason increasing the number of qubits in the system is important is because it also allows for a significant amount of additional work to be done and for more complex problems to be considered. And according to Intel, the gap between where we are today and where the company thinks we need to be for commercialization of quantum computing is enormous.

“In the quest to deliver a commercially viable quantum computing system, it’s anyone’s game,” said Mike Mayberry, corporate vice president and managing director of Intel Labs. “We expect it will be five to seven years before the industry gets to tackling engineering-scale problems, and it will likely require 1 million or more qubits to achieve commercial relevance.”

Intel is also investigating another type of qubit, spin qubits, to see if they can be implemented in silicon. Spin qubits are much smaller and can potentially be implemented in CMOS and Intel has invented a spin qubit fabrication flow on “300mm process technology.” This is oddly phrased, but seems to indicate Intel is building these chips on its 300mm wafers as opposed to some new process node.

The fallout from the exposure of vulnerabilities in the vast majority of chips currently in computers all over the world is going to necessitate a rethink of how to deliver the best possible processing speeds at an attractive price. For too long the semiconductor business has paid scant attention to the threat of hacking but with the increasing digitization of the global economy it is an issue that can no longer be simply ignored.

Tech giants' powerful user networks, large cash piles and access to consumer data have led many investors to expect the big will only get bigger.

"You need critical mass to support continuing innovation," said Christopher Dyer, director of global equity at Eaton Vance. While there are exceptions, "China and the U.S. would be natural destinations for incremental dollar investment within tech," he said.

The return to outperformance of emerging markets has been a major topic of conversation for investors this year but it is worth highlighting that Tencent Holdings, Alibaba, Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor represent 17% of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index.

The Chart Seminar

It is always a pleasure to meet subscribers but doubly so when we get to spend two days together discussing the outlook for psychological makeup of the market, where we are in the big cycles and which sectors are leading and which are showing relative strength. I had three big takeaways from last week’s seminar in London.

As anyone who has attended the seminar will know, I do not have examples but offer delegates the opportunity to dictate the direction of the conversation. That ensures the subject matter is relevant to what they are interested in and also highlights the fact that subject matter is applicable to all markets where an imbalance between supply and demand exists. The second benefit of allowing delegates to pick the subject matter is that it is offers a window into what is popular in markets right now and what might be getting overlooked.

Ubisoft's Microtransaction Revenue Just Beat Digital Sales for the First Time

This article from Extreme Tech may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Microtransactions have been hotly debated since they began debuting in mobile games almost ten years ago. While they’d been used sporadically in various games for years, the rise of mobile games and their extremely low-to-free pricing made them a functional necessity for developers working in Android or iOS. The AAA PC gaming industry quickly took notice of this, and began offering games with microtransaction options. There’s been a great deal of pushback from the community at various points (Dead Space 3 got hosed for it, as did Bethesda and its horse armor), but microtransactions are clearly here to say. Ubisoft just reported that it took in more money in microtransaction sales than it did in game sales for the first time ever.

Over the past few years, Ubisoft has seen a notable shift in its earnings for various titles, SeekingAlpha reports. Game sales were buoyed this year by South Park: The Fractured But Whole and Assassin’s Creed: Origins, but microtransactions shot up even further, growing 1.83x in 12 months compared to 1.57x for game sales. Ubisoft also got a boost from the Switch, but even with Nintendo’s new platform, microtransactions brought home the bacon.

Once upon a time you bought a computer game and it included everything you would ever need to play that game. I started playing Diablo 2 as a teenager and the game is still available online with access to the Battlenet server, so players can join and play with or against others. It’s still free after more than 20 years. The updated version of the game, Diablo 3, has downloadable content (DLC as my daughters refer to it), and additional characters you can pay for. Overwatch, Activision Blizzard’s newest hit game releases animated shorts to build interest in characters, has built in loot boxes for extra gear and additional outfits for your favourite characters all of which represent additional revenue streams.

How To Diversify Your Portfolio and Transfer Wealth Across Generations Without Financial Advisory

Thanks to Bernard Tan for this note which offers an interesting perspective on why truly global companies, that dominate their respective niches, with long track records, tend to outperform over time. Here is a section:

I’m going to use 3M to illustrate the following points.

1. Equities as an asset class is often perceived as riskier than others but there is one sector within equities that I will argue is safer than everything else including fixed income and real estate.

2. If you invest in a world class, global scale company that is from this sector, you are already fully diversified, hedged and all the macro economic issues and challenges taken care of.

3. This sector is resilient in the face of even a global financial crisis because frequently, these companies do not have high financial leverage. (Caveat: In recent years, it has become less true in the US and Europe)

What is 3M really? It is a deep physics, chemistry and material science company. Everything they do is about manipulating the atoms and molecules of nature to create functional materials that we can use in our daily lives.

With each passing year, 3M piles on more patents, a bigger library of chemicals and processes, more knowhow. All this knowledge is cumulative. The company is now 115 years old. All that accumulated intellectual property is practically unassailable. There will never be another company like 3M anywhere else in the world. Certain segments of their business can be separately attacked but there will never be another company that can challenge 3M on most fronts simultaneously.

This is the nature of science and intellectual property. The strength is cumulative over time. In contrast, for real estate companies and banks, big or small has no bearing on vulnerability to debt crisis storms, as we all learnt in 2008. The underlying strength is not cumulative over time, not the way it is for a science and intellectual property company.

When I click through the constituents of the Autonomies section of the Chart Library 3M always comes out first because they are listed in alphabetical order. However, the reason the company is included in the list of Autonomies is because it fulfils every qualification for membership. It is a truly global company with operations everywhere and generates 60% of revenue from outside its home market.

The World Stands in Line as the iPhone X Goes on Sale

This photo montage captures the enthusiasm for Apple’s iPhone X. Here is a section:

The $1,000 price tag on Apple Inc.’s new iPhone X didn’t deter throngs of enthusiasts around the world who waited—sometimes overnight—in long lines with no guarantee they would walk out of the store with one of the coveted devices.

Apple briefly became the U.S.’s first $900 billion company on the day the new smartphone went on sale.

Consumers have understandably been delaying purchases until the X was launched. After all why fork over $700 for a second-rate version when the feature laden anniversary edition is only six weeks away. Glass on front and back and rumours that the augmented reality has been toned down to speed up production are unlikely to deter initial enthusiasm for the device not least as the new emoticons are designed to appeal to the young hip crowd.

Facebook, Twitter, Google to Tell Congress How Russia Meddled

This article by Steven T. Dennis, Sarah Frier and Gerrit De Vynck for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Lawmakers are focused on whether there was any overlap between the Trump campaign and the massive Russian effort to flood Americans’ social media feeds with fake news and fake ads.

Facebook plans to tell lawmakers that 80,000 posts came from 470 fake Russian accounts and that it closed 5.8 million fake accounts from all sources in October 2016 alone. Fake Russian accounts on Facebook’s Instagram posted an additional 120,000 pieces of content, the company will tell lawmakers.

At the same hearing, Twitter Inc. will say it has suspended 2,752 Russian-linked accounts, far more than it previously disclosed, according to testimony obtained by Bloomberg News. Alphabet Inc.’s Google plans to say the impact on its sites was much smaller, with $4,700 worth of Russian-linked ads, compared to the $100,000 Facebook disclosed.

There is no doubt that foreign interference in the electoral process of another country is almost universally going to be greeted with hostility and not least when it is so openly pursued. Russia was probably betting that it could pursue its geopolitical goals with less interference from a Trump administration than a Clinton one but that was a risky strategy when it must have known what the political blowback would be when it actions were discovered.

Amazon Threat Causes Shakeout in the Health-Care Industry

This article by Robert Langreth, Jared S Hopkins, and Spencer Soper for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Analysts have speculated that Amazon could soon enter the business of selling prescription drugs, threatening to disrupt retail drugstores, drug wholesalers, and the pharmacy-benefits management business. While Amazon has never publicly commented on what its plans may be, CNBC reported this month that the Internet giant could make a decision about selling drugs online by Thanksgiving. The network didn’t name its sources.

McKesson slid 5.2 percent at 4 p.m. in New York, while AmerisourceBergen shares fell 4.2 percent and Express Scripts sank 3.7 percent following the report on Amazon’s state licenses by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Bloomberg News confirmed that Amazon had obtained wholesale-pharmacy licenses in at least 13 states, including Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, North Dakota, Oregon, Alabama, Louisiana, New Jersey, Michigan, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Utah and Iowa. An application is pending in Maine. Some of the licenses were obtained late last year and some this year.

Amazon doesn’t make money from shipping products in the USA and makes a loss on doing the same elsewhere which helps to explain why it can continue to grow market share at the expense of conventional companies. It depends on its webservices business to provide profits even though the online retail business accounts for the vast majority of turnover. However, it is the fact that Amazon has leeched earnings from other sectors to feed its revenue growth which is what investors are betting on which has contributed to the consistency of the advance since 2015.

Deep Dive into Digital Era of Gaming

Thanks to a subscriber for this report from Barclays which may be of interest. Here is a section:

Gaming data points available today point to an industry facing challenges: The number of physical games sold in the US has declined every year for the better part of the last decade, the install base of consoles is well below the prior cycle peak, and the physical attach rate of software is below where it was in the last two console cycles. However, this is the old way of analyzing this business and in the new “Digital Era” of video games, the business has shifted from one that is hit-driven and reliant on physical retail to an industry that is largely online (over 60% digital and could arguably shift completely online longer term), more recurring and predictable, more monetize-able, and significantly more profitable.

When we consider that the number of games sold as digital copies continues to grow at 20- 30% each year, notably the market for console software is actually growing – albeit at a single-digit rate. Add to that, the install base of hardware continues to progress towards 100mn+ HD units and, while the physical attach rate of software is below where it was in the last two console cycles, the focus on deeper engagement and higher player monetization through digital content appears to be largely offsetting the impact of fewer game sales. We remain optimistic that newer hardware including Nintendo’s Switch and Microsoft’s Xbox One X can re-invigorate the market for games and are encouraged by some early trends. US retail sales are tracking up mid-single digits year over year in 2017 and, adjusting for sales of digital games, it appears that the number of games sold each year in the US is stable y/y.

In the Digital Era, gaming content will always be available and players will have access to games in more ways than ever. The industry will become far more global and fragmented across devices than before, which will increase the potential audience for gaming content substantially. We are cautiously optimistic on the potential for traditional video game publishers to further penetrate the rapidly-growing markets in China and on Mobile, however, and we remain on the sidelines regarding the emerging interest in eSports and VR. Nonetheless, we still believe the value proposition of games remains very high relative to other forms of media and we are encouraged that the new revenue TAM in the Digital Era is dictated only by the amount of time players have to engage with games, rather than by the number of consoles in their hands.

Gaming is evolving into a much larger industry than movies. Audiences at theatres continue to decline, not least because of the lackluster “cookie-cutter” nature of many movies but also because audiences have more to do and have both online games and content available 24/7. That represents a significant migration within the media sector which is easily observable in the performance of respective shares.

Amazon to make sportswear push in industry-jolting move

This article by Lindsey Rupp and Daniela Wei for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Amazon has developed its own brands in part because they fill gaps in its inventory. If customers are searching for a certain type of shoe or skirt, and don’t see much of a selection from established brands, Amazon wants to be able to offer its own options. Oftentimes, shoppers may not realize that the names -- such as Scout + Ro and North Eleven -- are owned by Amazon.

This also sends a message to brands reluctant to sell their full inventory on Amazon. If shoppers can’t find your products on the site, Amazon will make its own substitutes and become your competitor.

For suppliers like Eclat, forging alliances with e-commerce companies reflects shifting demand from consumers, Chiu said in a note.

“Online apparel sales accounted for 19 percent of all apparel sales in 2016, up from 11 percent in 2011,” Chiu said.

“Online sales are primed for strong growth.” Eclat expects new clients to contribute as much as 12 percent of 2018 sales, she said. The shipments to Amazon began in August, according to Chiu. “The contribution this year will be small, but the potential is high,” she said.

Amazon has a wealth of data about what people search for and can also cross reference that with what people in fact end up purchasing and returning. That puts it in an enviable position to design product lines around what people want rather than guessing what the next fashion forward idea is going to be.

JD Logistics Launches World's First Unmanned Parcel Sorting Centre

Disintermediation was the buzzword of the internet during the 1990s but the trend on cutting out the middle man continues as the number of hands touching an item between the manufacturer and the end consumer continues to shrink.

Musings from the Oil Patch September 12th 2017

Thanks to a subscriber for this edition of Allen Brooks’ ever interesting report for PPHB. Here is a section:

If a homeowner installs a charging station in his garage, there may not be much impact on the grid. However, if all his neighbors do the same thing, there could be a problem. Transformers are necessary to regulate the power flowing into a home, and they usually service multiple homes, generally four at a time. A problem is that utility companies do not know exactly how much power is being used by a particular home relative to its neighbors until a transformer fails. Upgrading transformers can be expensive and limited by weight limits for units mounted on power poles. One estimate suggests moving from a 50KVA pad-mounted transformer serving four homes to a 75KVA unit costs about $3,000.

For underground power installations, upgrading the transformer units may be easier, but not necessarily less costly. One study by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers says that the problem is at the local level. If multiple Level 2 chargers that fully recharge a car in 2-3 hours, are plugged in at the same time at night, they may prevent transformers from cooling as they are designed. Sustained excess current will eventually ‘cook’ a transformer’s copper windings, causing a short and blacking out of the homes attached to the device. This problem was observed from a study of the habits of EV owners in an Austin, Texas suburb. Over a two-month period, the residents tended to recharge their EVs at the same time – when returning from work – that coincided with air conditioning loads increasing along with the use of other appliances.

A similar study was conducted in the UK, which conducted an 18month study of resident habits when 100% were using EVs. The study’s result show that at least a third of the UK’s power grid will need to be upgraded to support an EV sales rate of 40% of new car sales by 2023. That doesn’t address the load issue if 40% of the entire UK vehicle fleet were plug-in EVs.

The rollout of electric vehicles, which is anticipated to ramp up as manufacturing capacity for both batteries and cars comes on line in the next few years, is going to put strain on the electrical grid both from a generating and traffic perspective. While it can be argued how much additional supply with be required, the introduction of charging stations to the residential environment will certainly increase the consumption of electricity at individual homes.

Apple's Rain of Cash Washes Away Debt Doubts

This article by Lisa Abramowicz Shira Ovide for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Stock investors love it, of course. Why wouldn't they? Apple is the third-biggest dividend payer in the U.S. behind Fannie Mae and Exxon Mobil Corp., which is music to any investor's ears when bonds are paying historically little. And debt investors seem to be just fine with forking their money over to the company; they've eagerly bought up multiple debt offerings from Apple so far this year, with the seventh 2017 bond sale on track to get the company's usual warm reception.

This raises longer-term risks and threats to the company that aren't highlighted often, if ever.

As long as Apple keeps churning out loads and loads of cash, all this is fine. Apple generates more cash than any other public U.S. company, and it's spending its money both to invest in its business and to return money to stockholders. Apple's spending on research and development has also increased sharply in recent years, as have its capital expenditures on things like manufacturing equipment, computer centers and its retail stores. In short, Apple produces enough cash to do everything a business is supposed to do: reward its owners, support its existing products and plan for the future.

Apple has mastered the art of milking its legions of fans by bringing out new products on a predictable schedule that iterate on previous offerings by being just better enough to justify the outlay.

Additionally, it is among an increasing number of companies that have employed an innovative strategy to bring its money home from overseas by issuing debt so that it can be returned to investors without paying corporate taxes. As the above article highlights, that policy will be fine as long as revenues remain robust.

Campbell Drops After Bleak Outlook Follows Blow From Buffet

This article by Craig Giammona for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Over the past three years, the 10 largest packaged-food companies have seen about $16 billion in revenue evaporate as consumers change how they eat and shop. Shoppers are seeking out more natural and organic food, shifting away from the staples that have dominated supermarket shelves for decades.

Whole Foods Deal
Amazon.com Inc.’s deal to buy Whole Foods also has fueled pessimism about packaged-food giants, with analysts predicting that the e-commerce titan will favor private-label products and squeeze the profit margins of its suppliers. In June, when that deal was announced, the 10 largest U.S. food companies lost almost $8 billion in market value combined.

In a bid to add more natural products, Campbell agreed to buy Pacific Foods of Oregon, a maker of organic soup and broth, for $700 million in June. Campbell also acquired Bolthouse -- a producer of carrots, juices and salad dressings -- for $1.55 billion in 2012. That business, now part of the Campbell Fresh unit, has struggled with poor harvests and a drink recall.

Leaner and fitter isn’t just a maxim for personal health but is increasingly being foisted upon consumer goods companies as the supermarket sector comes under pressures from low cost new entrants willing to compete on razor thin margins. Amazon’s focus on Whole Foods’ own brands coupled with Aldi and Lidl’s low cost own- brand focus represent challenges for other supermarket chains which are inevitably going to be passed on to their suppliers.

Dear iPhone: Here's Why We're Still Together After 10 Years

This article by Brian X.Chen for the New York Times may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Many eyes are now on Apple’s 10th anniversary event for the iPhone, which is expected to be held next month. There, Apple is set to introduce major upgrades for the next iPhones, which could stoke our appetites again for the gadget. Or not.

Chief among the changes for the new iPhones: refreshed versions, including a premium model priced at around $999, according to people briefed on the product, who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Apple made room for a bigger screen on that model by reducing the size of the bezel — or the forehead and the chin — on the face of the device. Other new features include facial recognition for unlocking the device, along with the ability to charge it with magnetic induction, the people said.

Here’s a look back at the last 10 years of why the iPhone still has us in its grip — so much that people keep coming back for more.

Rather than think of the iPhone as a product iteration it is probably better to describe it as an ecosystem. The phone itself represents a hefty initial outlay but the AppStore, while generating considerably less revenue, acts as an anchor for the brand because apps are transferrable between phones of the same brand but push up the cost of switching.

Amazon to Cut Prices at Whole Foods as Acquisition Closes

This article by Mark Gurman and Matt Townsend for Bloomberg highlights the continued polarisation in the retail sector between those with a technological/low cost advantage and conventional stores. Here is a section:

The company said it will begin slashing prices on a broad cross section of Whole Foods groceries Monday -- the same day the $13.7 billion deal is set to close. That will start with items such as chicken, eggs, some vegetables, and some types of organic fish. Amazon reeled off a long list of other plans to combine its leading e-commerce and delivery assets with the physical locations of Whole Foods stores.

"This is a pretty impressive array of bold moves on the first day of an acquisition -- unprecedented, we would say," said Carol Levenson, an analyst at Gimme Credit.

The moves by Amazon inflame an already raging price war in U.S. groceries -- a sector known for razor-thin profit margins.

German discount grocers like Lidl and Aldi are expanding in the U.S. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has been investing in more discounts too. Low prices are familiar terrain for Amazon, which has operated with little profitability for more than a decade. Shares of grocery-store chains fell on the announcements.

Kroger Co. declined as much as 2.4 percent while Sprouts Farmers Market Inc. sank 2.5 percent. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which sells the most groceries in the U.S., also dropped 0.8 percent.

Amazon will also begin selling Whole Foods branded products, including those that are part of the 365 brand, via its website, and through fast delivery services like AmazonFresh, PrimeNow, and Prime Pantry, the company said.

Amazon Prime is no longer the cheapest venue for goods but is among the most convenient. That turn to mild profitability has allowed the share to perform admirably over the last 18 months. The decision to embark on a price war following its acquisition of Whole Foods, which has historically been among the most expensive vendors, is a threat to established stores that have never had to compete on price with a company possessing Whole Foods’ cache.

“Increasing use of robots should be bad news for medium-skilled workers, especially those in sectors where routine work means scope for automation,” Orlik and Chen said. “Yet wage growth in China remains rapid, and if anything, medium-skilled workers conducting routine work are doing better than average.”

Technological innovation has led to the pace of development speeding up. It will not have escaped the attention of investors that the original Tiger economies were able to evolve economically much faster than the Europe or North America during the Industrial Revolution. More recently China has come from relative obscurity to be the world’s second largest economy. What used to take generations now takes decades and the pace of development is speeding up so that we may witness multiple iterations in our lifetimes. As much youngest daughter delights in telling me, she was born the same year as the iPhone.

Facebook Usage Among Teens Set to Drop in U.S

This article by Sarah Frier for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

“Teens and tweens remaining on Facebook seem to be less engaged –- logging in less frequently and spending less time on the platform,” Orozco said. “At the same time, we now have Facebook-nevers, many children aging into the tween demographic that appear to be overlooking Facebook altogether, yet still engaging with Facebook-owned Instagram.”

A year ago my now 11-year old wanted to text her friends, but I had no intention of giving her a phone. Ever resourceful, she gave her friends my number with the result being, she co-opted use of my phone because her class’ group chat was constantly buzzing. As a compromise, I cloned my phone, so now I have two sim cards and two handsets. All messages arrive on both phones simultaneously. She gets use of a phone and I have real-time oversight.

Hollywood, Apple Said to Mull Rental Plan, Defying Theaters

This article by Anousha Sakoui for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Movie studios are considering whether to ignore the objections of cinema chains and forge ahead with a plan to offer digital rentals of films mere weeks after they appear in theaters, according to people familiar with the matter.

Some of the biggest proponents, including Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures, are pressing on in talks with Apple Inc. and Comcast Corp. on ways to push ahead with the project even without theater chains, the people said. After months of negotiations, the two sides have been unable to arrive at a mutually beneficial way to create a $30 to $50 premium movie-download product.

The leading Hollywood studios, except for Walt Disney Co., are eager to introduce a new product to make up for declining sales of DVDs and other home entertainment in the age of Netflix. They have discussed sharing a split of the revenue from premium video on demand, or PVOD, with the cinema chains if they give their blessing to the concept. But the exhibitors have sought a long-term commitment of as much as 10 years for that revenue split, which the studios have rejected, the people said.

Movie theatres are in real danger of being disrupted in the much the same way as big box retail because many people would prefer to watch movies at home, studios would have to wait less time to monetise the movie and it would combat piracy. It seems to be only a matter of time before streaming replaces movie theatres in their current format.

Japan: Ignore Autos and Electronics to Profit

Thanks to a subscriber for this article by Emma Wall for Morningstar may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

With a shrinking working population, Japan has record low levels of unemployment and the economy is poised to receive a boost once this lack of supply filters down to wage growth. But there are equities which can profit from the tight labour market according to Weindling; he invests in recruitment firms that provide permanent and temporary workers.

Suppliers Immune from Domestic Threats
While the population is ageing, Weindling points out that a Japanese company does not need a Japanese customer base to thrive.

“There is no reason why Japan should not continue to make things. Factory automation and robotics are not a threat to Japanese industrials in the way that they are to US companies – they are the solution to a dwindling workforce,” he says. “More automation is a good thing, and the larger industrials will continue to take market share. It is a multi-year, structural shift.”

That does not mean he backs the exporters of old, however. The international names which have long been synonymous with Japan are electronics firms and auto-makers; Toyota, Canon, Mitsubishi and even Sony are no-go areas for Weindling.

“No one buys cameras anymore, so why would I buy Canon,” he says. “We don’t own any of those household names. Their prospects are considerably lessened. Japan’s export market is no longer about cars and electronics, it is about condoms, baby milk, skin cream, medicine. Japan is known across Asia for high-quality products, reliability and high safety standards. These are the companies you want to be invested in.”

Japan is an increasingly popular tourist destination for Asian, particularly Chinese, tourists who come with well-defined shopping lists from WeChat personalities that tell them exactly what and what not to purchase. On my family’s visit to Japan in April there were a number of consumer items Mrs. Treacy was very eager to try based on reviews she had seen in Chinese social media.

Chinese automakers covet FCA

This article by Larry Vellquette for Automotive News may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Why, after two years on the block, is FCA apparently drawing interest from at least one potential Chinese buyer now?
The answer: FCA's global network and product — specifically Jeep and Ram — fit the requirements the Chinese government has set for attractive acquisitions.

Quality gap
Chinese automakers have openly dreamed of cracking lucrative North America for a decade, spending millions to display their vehicles at high-profile U.S. auto shows. Early efforts showed that Chinese automakers had a long way to go before they were ready to compete here.

But in more recent years — through knowledge and expertise gained via joint ventures with the world's largest and most successful automakers — Chinese companies have closed the quality gap.

And the automakers feel like they finally have closed that gap enough to start selling their products in the U.S., said Michael Dunne, president of Dunne Automotive, a Hong Kong investment advisory company and an expert on the Chinese auto industry.

They also are under pressure from the government to expand beyond China, Dunne said. A government directive dubbed China Outbound pushes Chinese businesses to acquire international assets from their industries and operate them "to make their mark," much as Geely has done since acquiring Volvo in 2010. Bloomberg reported last week that Chinese companies plan to spend $1.5 trillion acquiring overseas companies over the next decade — a 70 percent increase from current levels.

Germanys auto sector has been garnering all the wrong sorts of attention lately with increasingly evidence that the major manufacturers may have colluded in hoodwinking the globe into believing diesel engines are clean. On the other hand, China’s auto manufacturers have been among the best performers this year as they have increasingly focused on partnerships with international brands.

This article from MarketWatch covers most of the relevant points on the uptick in volatility in response to heightening brinksmanship with North Korea. Here is a section:

The downdraft for the equity market comes amid rising geopolitical tensions, after a North Korean army commander said “sound dialogue” isn’t possible with U.S. President Donald Trump and “only absolute force can work on him,” according to state media. North Korea also laid out detailed plans of how it would launch a missile strike on U.S. military bases in Guam.

The recent testy exchange underlines mounting tensions between Pyongyang and Washington that Wall Street investors are fretting could risk an all-out nuclear war between the nations.

Against that backdrop, the VIX has been steadily rising over the past three sessions coinciding with a pullback in stocks and a jump in demand for assets perceived as havens including gold GCZ7, +1.03% which was trading around a two-month high and 10-year benchmark Treasurys TMUBMUSD10Y, -0.47%, which were hovering at yearly yield lows around 2.22%. Bond prices move inversely to yields.

Betting on persistently low volatility has been among the best performing trades this year with stock markets continuing to advance while leveraged short VIX ETFs surged higher. Whether that strategy is likely to continue to perform is now being questioned.

Apple Signals Resilient IPhone Demand Helped by Supporting Cast

This article by Alex Webb for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

“There is some relief from the fear of a significant pause before the 10th anniversary iPhone refresh,” said Michael Obuchowski, chief investment officer at Merlin Capital LLC in Boston, which holds Apple stock. “I’m beginning to think it won’t matter if the new iPhones aren’t that exciting.”

Apple is likely to introduce three new handsets this year: a revamped top model, known for now as the iPhone 8, and upgrades to the existing iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, people familiar with the plans have told Bloomberg News. The high-end iPhone will include an organic light-emitting diode screen, and inadequate OLED supplies mean that it will not be as readily available as the cheaper handsets at launch, the people said.

Cook said reporting about the new versions of the iPhone “has created a pause” in consumer buying “that is likely larger than previously.” Apple’s stock has soared on expectations that the new high- end smartphone, which will also include a front-facing three- dimensional sensor to enable facial recognition, will spur a resurgence in demand that will carry into the holiday quarter and beyond. Sales growth of the company’s flagship product has slowed over the past two years as the market has become increasingly saturated and competitors have offered cheaper products with similar capabilities.

New Technologies
Slowing smartphone sales have prompted Apple to invest more heavily in developing new technologies. It’s working on smart glasses, an autonomous driving system, improved health and fitness offerings, and its own semiconductor technology.

Research and development spending jumped 15 percent to $2.9 billion in the most recent quarter. Apple unveiled the early fruits of its spending on augmented reality technology in June, releasing a set of tools which let developers build AR software for the iPhone and iPad when the next operating system for those devices is rolled out later this year. Cook has over the past 18 months repeatedly said how excited he is about the prospects for AR.

Cook is preparing to release Apple’s first new hardware category since 2015. The HomePod, the smart speaker that will go on sale in December, is the company’s response to Amazon.com Inc.’s Echo and Alphabet Inc.’s Google Home speakers. The company is hoping that advanced acoustic capabilities will encourage consumers to pay $349 for the device -- almost three times as much as the Google Home.

Apple faces stiff competition in the smartphone market but comes with two distinct advantages. The size and breadth of the app store is a considerable benefit for the company and acts as an anchor for customers. The second is Apple’s followers are among the most devoted fans of any brand and represent a latent source of demand for new products.

Pepsi Says It's Facing the Same Trends That Are Battering Retail

This article by Janet Freund for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Retail’s “shifting sands and macro headwinds will make near-term earnings beats challenging” for PepsiCo, Wells Fargo analyst Bonnie Herzog said in a note to clients. Still, PepsiCo gets a large proportion of revenue from snacks, which are easier to sell online than beverages, she said. That means the company is better positioned to adapt than some of its peers.

PepsiCo’s comments were similar to those made by Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey, who told Bloomberg in May that when shoppers skip trips to the local mall and shop online, they also forgo buying Coke at a vending machine or food court. Coca-Cola investors will be watching to see how that may hurt second-quarter results on July 26.

Nooyi’s remarks were “an acknowledgement to the intensifying competitive environment that will likely get more so with Amazon involved,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Ken Shea wrote in an email. Still, some consumer products companies will be more vulnerable than others to change, and PepsiCo’s “huge distribution reach and agility arguably make it less vulnerable” to changing shopper behavior than its peers, he said.

Amazon Prime Day was the firm’s highest grossing ever, with its discounted Echo speaker being the top seller yesterday. The company sells just about everything and is now offering try-before-you-buy on fashion, same day delivery and investigating how to sell pharmaceuticals and auto parts. It is logical that even companies which reside squarely in the consumer staples sector but also get part of their income from discretionary products would be affected by the demise of the shopping mall.

New Cyberattack Goes Global, Hits WPP, Rosneft, Maersk

This article by Giles Turner , Volodymyr Verbyany , and Stepan Kravchenko for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

The hack quickly spread from Russia and the Ukraine, through Europe and into the U.S. A.P. Moller-Maersk, operator of the world’s largest container line, said its customers can’t use online booking tools and its internal systems are down. The attack is affecting multiple sites and units, which include a major port operator and an oil and gas producer, spokeswoman Concepcion Boo Arias said by phone.

APM Terminals, owned by Maersk, is experiencing system issues at multiple terminals, including the Port of New York and New Jersey, the largest port on the U.S. East Coast, and Rotterdam in The Netherlands, Europe’s largest harbor. APM Terminals at the Port of New York and New Jersey will be closed for the rest of the day “due to the extent of the system impact,” the Port said.

Cie de Saint-Gobain, a French manufacturer, said its systems had also been infected, though a spokeswoman declined to elaborate, and the French national railway system, the SNCF, was also affected, according to Le Parisien. Mondelez International Inc. said it was also experiencing a global IT outage and was looking into the cause. Merck & Co. Inc., based in Kenilworth, New Jersey, reported that its computer network was compromised due to the hack.

The Wannacry cyberattack occurred in May and hit a number of hospitals and transportation networks. The first conclusion we can draw from the new but similar Petya virus is that it has taken hackers less than a month to iron out the bugs with their first attempt. The next iteration of the attack will likely be even more sophisticated.

Nestle Targeted by Dan Loeb in Activist's Biggest-Ever Bet

This article by Ed Hammond and Beth Jinks for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

“The L’Oréal stake could be divested via an exchange offer for Nestle shares that would accelerate efforts to optimize its capital return policies, immediately enhance the company’s return on equity, and meaningfully increase its share value in the long run,” said Third Point, which retained former Sara Lee Corp. Executive Chairman Jan Bennink to advise on the investment.

A L’Oréal spokeswoman declined to comment.
Consumer companies have become popular targets for activist shareholders. In 2015, billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman amassed a $5.6 billion stake in snack giant Mondelez International Inc. and called for management to improve the company’s performance, leading to cost cuts. Procter & Gamble Co. attracted Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management LP, which revealed its position in the consumer-products maker in February and has since amassed a stake valued at about $3.3 billion, according to its latest regulatory filing.

Loeb is aiming high with Nestle as activist investors enjoy a resurgence of client inflows and returns. Third Point’s flagship fund gained almost 10 percent in the first five months of 2017, part of an industrywide rebound that saw event-driven funds return 5.6 percent on an asset-weighted basis, the most among the main strategies tracked by Hedge Fund Research Inc.

Nestle has a large number of businesses and, in order to remain competitive, needs to reorient itself towards growth sectors in its largest developed markets. It is interesting however that the thrust of the activism is towards highlighting the significant cross ownership Nestle has in other European companies.

Amazon Cometh to Grocery What Does it Mean?

Thanks to a subscriber for this report from Morgan Stanley which may be of interest. Here is a section:

2) Removing Consumers’ Online Grocery Pain Points…to Better Attack the$780bn US Grocery Market: The addition of WFM materially improves AMZN’s grocery user proposition and its ability to penetrate the ~$780bn US grocery market (See Exhibit 6). Grocery eCommerce penetration is still low (estimated 3% see Exhibit 7) in part because (per our AlphaWise survey data) consumers enjoy selecting their own food, value the in-store experience as well as the certainty that the food is correct (See Exhibit 5). The addition of WFM and its 465+ stores (across 3 countries and 42 US states) solves these points of friction. Bigger picture, this speaks to the importance of brick and mortar in certain e-commerce categories as AMZN (through WFM) and BABA (though Intime) continue to expand their attack on consumers’ wallets

3) WFM + Prime Now = A 1-2 Hour Prime Personal Shopper: The combination of WFM’s store footprint and grocery inventory with Prime Now will enable AMZN to improve the Prime Now product…as Prime Now will be able to offer consumers grocery delivery in 1-2 hours. AMZN will also be able to leverage the store footprint to house other inventory, to expand its Prime Now selection. Prime Now just became a 1-2 hour personal shopper.

4) Changing Consumer Behavior Again as 1-2 Hour Delivery Could Replace 2- Day Delivery Expectations: In our view, AMZN’s core business is behaviour modification, and a stronger 1-2 hour offering has the potential to further increase consumers’ expectations for e-commerce shipping times. Just as AMZN pushed expectations from a week delivery time (13 years ago) to 2 days (with Prime, introduced in 2005), a more robust Prime Now could further move the goal-posts to 2 hours. This will only further AMZN's competitive offering vs other retailers.

5) A further driver of Prime Subscriber growth. Our Alphawise data show that ~62% of Whole Food Shoppers are Prime Members (See Exhibit 2). Amazon's ability to convert more Whole Foods shoppers into its Prime membership has the potential to lead to faster long term growth and wallet share growth. Bigger picture, 2 hour delivery could also drive faster Prime sub growth. In the words of Jeff Bezos on April 2016 "We want Prime to be such a good value, you’d be irresponsible not to be a member".

There has been a great deal of media coverage of Amazon’s foray into brick and mortar grocery stores, albeit at the high end side of the market. Kroger and Target extended downtrends on the news amid widespread speculation that the middle of the market is being hollowed out and that is an argument I have sympathy with as German discounters Aldi and Lidl expand in the US.

We'll Live to 100 How Can We Afford It?

Thanks to a subscriber for this report from the World Economic Forum. Here is a section:

In Japan, which has one of the world’s most rapidly ageing populations, retirement can begin at 60. This could result in a retirement of over 45 years for those who will live to the current life expectancy of 1071 (see Figure 2). What is the impact of a population that will spend 20%-25% more time in retirement than they did in the workforce? How do we rethink our retirement systems that were designed to support a retirement of 10-15 years to prepare for this seismic shift?

One obvious implication of living longer is that we are going to have to spend longer working. The expectation that retirement will start early- to mid-60s is likely to be a thing of the past, or a privilege of the very wealthy.

Absent any change to retirement ages, or expected birth rates, the global dependency ratio (the ratio of those in the workforce to those in retirement) will plummet from 8:1 today to 4:1 by 2050. The global economy simply can't bear this burden. Inevitably retirement ages will rise, but by how much and how quickly demands urgent consideration from policy-makers.

Given the rise in longevity and the declining dependency ratio, policy-makers must immediately consider how to foster a functioning labour market for older workers to extend working careers as much as possible. Employers also have a key role to play in helping workers reskill and adapt their work styles to support a longer working career.

This paper focuses on the sustainability and affordability of our current retirement systems. To protect against poverty in old age, we believe that retirement systems should be designed to provide a level playing field and equal opportunity for all individuals. A well-designed system needs to be affordable for today’s workers and sustainable for future generations to ensure that all financial promises are met.

Healthy pension systems contribute positively towards creating a stable and prosperous economy. Ensuring that the public has confidence in the system, and that promised benefits will be met, allows individuals to continue to consume and spend through their working and retired years. If this hard-earned confidence is lost, there is a significant risk that retirees will moderate their spending habits and consumption patterns. Such moderation would have a negative impact on the overall economy, particularly in countries where the size of the retired population continues to grow.

Action is needed to realign our existing systems with the challenges of an ageing population. Those who take proactive steps will be better equipped in the years ahead.

I’m 40 so according to this report I have a 50% chance of living to 94. The Chart Seminar is in its 48th year in 2017 so you never know I might manage to get it to the century because we are all going to be working a lot longer. It’s a good thing I’m doing something I enjoy and perhaps that is the best advice. You are going to be working for an awfully long time so be prepared to change jobs, adapt and enjoy what you do.

VW's Diesel Defeat Devices Finally Located, Cracked Wide Open

This article by Joel Hruska for EmtremeTech may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

But making those rules public does have a downside: It means companies know precisely how to cheat. Here’s how the Jacobs School describes the situation:

During emissions standards tests, cars are placed on a chassis equipped with a dynamometer, which measures the power output of the engine. The vehicle follows a precisely defined speed profile that tries to mimic real driving on an urban route with frequent stops. The conditions of the test are both standardized and public. This essentially makes it possible for manufacturers to intentionally alter the behavior of their vehicles during the test cycle. The code found in Volkswagen vehicles checks for a number of conditions associated with a driving test, such as distance, speed and even the position of the wheel. If the conditions are met, the code directs the onboard computer to activate emissions curbing mechanism when those conditions were met.

But VW didn’t stop there. The researchers who examined Volkswagen’s work pulled 964 separate versions of the Engine Control Unit (ECU)’s code from various makes and models of Volkswagens. In 400 of those cases, the ECU was programmed with defeat devices.

Now, you might be thinking that a single code model couldn’t possibly compare all the variables in play between various test facilities, and that some cars should have shown a fault simply due to random chance. But VW was aware of that possibility and took steps to prevent it. Their defeat device had ten separate profiles to allow it to detect various permutations in test scenarios.

Not all the defeat devices were sophisticated. The Fiat 500X (not manufactured by VW) has a much simpler defeat device. The vehicle’s emission control system runs for 26 minutes and 40 seconds after you first start the car, period. That’s long enough to pass most emission tests, and it doesn’t try to detect if the vehicle is being tested. But VW’s work was extremely sophisticated, it evolved over time, and the company’s claims that this was all instituted by a few rogue engineers are more farcical than ever.

The fact that it has taken this long to figure out just how the diesel defeat mechanisms function highlights the fact that Volkswagen and Bosch have not been entirely forthcoming with investigators. The emerging reality is that defeating emissions testing was a long-term highly orchestrated endeavour that must have required the efforts of teams of engineers and years of work to achieve such impressive results.

Amazon Makes Major Push Into Furniture

This article by Brian Baskin and Laura Stevens for the Wall Street Journal may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

The online retail giant is making a major push into furniture and appliances, including building at least four massive warehouses focused on fulfilling and delivering bulky items, according to people familiar with Amazon’s plans.

With that move, the Seattle-based retailer is taking on the two companies that dominate online furniture sales— Wayfair Inc. W -5.95% and Pottery Barn owner Williams-Sonoma Inc. Furniture is one of the fastest-growing segments of U.S. online retail, growing 18% in 2015, second only to groceries, according to Barclays. About 15% of the $70 billion U.S. furniture market has moved online, researcher IBISWorld says.

But even the biggest players in online furniture are struggling to get the market right. Unlike established categories such as books and music or even apparel, retailers are still hammering out basic concepts like how much variety to offer on their sites and the most efficient ways to deliver couches and dining sets to customers’ homes.

While Amazon has been selling furniture for years, it has lately decided to tackle the sector more forcefully.

“Furniture is one of the fastest-growing retail categories here at Amazon,” said Veenu Taneja, furniture general manager at Amazon, in a statement. He said the company is expanding its selection of products, with offerings including Ashley Furniture sofas and Jonathan Adler home décor, and it is adding custom-furniture design services. Amazon is also speeding up delivery to one or two days in some cities, he adde

Free returns and secure transactions make online shopping risk free and painless from the perspective of consumers. Amazon is employing that strategy in an increasing number of sectors but most particularly in furniture and fashion. The number of brands Amazon now carries as well as sporting its own designs represent not only a direct threat to Williams Sonoma but to departments stores generally.

Day One for President Moon Sees Korea Stocks in Retreat With Won

This article from Bloomberg News may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

The Kospi index dropped the most since March as North Korea reiterating its pledge to push forward with another nuclear test showed Moon Jae-in, the victor in Tuesday’s presidential vote, is unlikely to get a honeymoon. While Citigroup Inc. to Morgan Stanley are betting on further upside for South Korea’s record- setting stocks, analysts and investors are seeking more from Moon, who ran on a platform of corporate reform and rapprochement with North Korea.

“Markets will take this on the chin,” said James Soutter, who helps manage the equivalent of about $500 million at K2 Asset Management in Melbourne, referring to the election.
“Rumblings out of North Korea on further nuclear tests should have a bigger influence on markets than the election.”

While Korean technology shares rallied on bets Moon will bolster the sector as a way of delivering more jobs, the Kospi spiked lower, declining 1 percent Wednesday -- the most since March 3 -- as utilities and banks paced losses. Markets in Seoul were closed for the election Tuesday, so the drop came after a 2.3 percent surge in the Kospi on Monday, its best day since September 2015

The South Korean Kospi Index has been ranging for six years but broke out ahead of the election to new all-time highs. Increased tensions with North Korea coinciding with a short-term overbought condition suggest there is scope for some consolidation of the recent run-up. However a sustained move below the trend mean would be required to question medium-term scope for additional upside.

Can Wal-Mart's Expensive New E-Commerce Operation Compete With Amazon?

This article by Brad Stone and Matthew Boyle for Bloomberg caught my attention. Here is a section:

The video worked exceedingly well. In August, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced it would acquire Jet.com for $3.3 billion in cash and stock. It was an extraordinary sum for a 15-month-old, purple-hued website that was struggling to retain customers and is still far from making a profit. Even more astonishing, Lore and his management team in Hoboken, N.J., were put in charge of Wal-Mart’s entire domestic e-commerce operation, overseeing more than 15,000 employees in Silicon Valley, Boston, Omaha, and its home office in Arkansas. They were assigned perhaps the most urgent rescue mission in business today: Repurpose Wal-Mart’s historically underachieving internet operation to compete in the age of Amazon. “Amazon has run away with it, and Wal-Mart has not executed well,” says Scot Wingo, chief executive officer of Channel Advisor Corp., which advises brands and merchants on how to sell online. “That’s what Marc Lore has inherited.”

Lore’s ascendancy at Wal-Mart adds bitter personal drama that wouldn’t seem out of place on Real Housewives of New Jersey to a battle between two of the most disruptive forces in the history of retail. In 2010, Wal-Mart tried to buy Lore’s first online retail company, Quidsi Inc., which operated websites such as Diapers.com for parents and Wag.com for pet owners. But it moved too slowly and lost out to a higher bid from Amazon.com Inc. Lore then toiled at Amazon for over two years before quitting, in part out of disappointment with its refusal to invest more in Quidsi and to integrate his team into the company, according to two people close to him.

You get a lot with your Amazon Prime membership from free 2-day shipping to photo storage and Amazon TV but you do not get the cheapest price on the majority of goods and Prime is not free. It costs $99 a year so you really need to shop, archive and watch Amazon to get your money’s worth and for many people that works out since it has built its subscriber base to 80 million people from 40.

Seeking a policy response to the robot takeover

This article by Alice M. Rivlin for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

If driverless deliveries prove faster, cheaper, safer, and more accurate, they would likely be adopted quickly and affect all parts of the country. Truck driving is much less concentrated in particular areas than, say, coal mining or steel making.

In 2016, there were 1.7 million heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers, with a median annual wage of $43,590; 859 hundred thousand light-truck and delivery workers, who earned $34,700; and 426 hundred thousand driver/sales workers, who earned $28,449. So a rough estimate would be that driverless deliveries would put at least 2.5 million drivers out of work, not counting drivers’ helpers and a substantial number of workers in truck stops and roadside services patronized by truckers. Truck drivers drink a lot of coffee.

Like many lost manufacturing jobs, truck driving requires skill, some special training, hard work, and fortitude, but not much formal education. If you did not go beyond high school, but are a reliable, safe driver—especially if you are willing to work the demanding schedules of long-haul truckers—you can support a family and have decent benefits by driving a truck.

The transition to driverless deliveries would also create some new jobs, many of them technical jobs involving software development and programming that would command relatively high wages. Vehicle maintenance jobs would still be necessary, and would likely require enhanced electronic skills with higher pay than current truck maintenance jobs. Expanded demand for the cheaper delivered products would likely create additional jobs in the transportation sector. It is impossible to predict the ultimate effects of any major technological change, but in the short run it is a good bet that a lot of former drivers would be looking for work and finding their skills and experience ill-suited to available jobs at comparable wages.

The one question I get wherever I go to talk is what am I going to do when the robots take my job? It’s a big question but over the last year it has really moved into the public consciousness. The prospect of machines driving down our roads with no human behind the wheel has lent a sense of reality to the debate that was not present in years past.

One Sign That the Retail Industry Isn't Dead Yet

This article by Leslie Patton for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

There’s plenty of talk about the retail industry dying, with malls closing and the slump stressing iconic chains like Sears Holdings Corp. and J. Crew, but healthier big-box giants such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp. are still chronically in need of employees, at least for now. The number of U.S. retail jobs was about the same last year compared with 2015, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. What’s really bedeviling retailers is annual turnover -- at 65 percent, it’s the highest since before the Great Recession -- making it necessary to keep hiring. The chains are so hungry for good help they’re poaching workers from fast-food restaurants.

“Those jobs tend to be more transitional, they tend to be more fluid, and as a result there tends to be higher turnover,” said Michael Harms of Dallas-based researcher TDn2K. “Even though you hear headlines like retail is dying and the robots are coming, there’s still a lot of things that need human touch points. It’s a dogfight over good employees.”

Can the Synchronous Recovery Last?

Thanks to a subscriber for this report from Morgan Stanley which has a number of interesting nuggets. Here is a section:

For the first time since 2010, the global economy is enjoying a synchronous recovery (see chart). The developed markets’ (DM) private sector is exiting deleveraging after several years of slow growth due to a focus on balance sheet repair and, after four years of adjustment, the emerging markets are in a recovery mode. These trends create a positive feedback loop. Indeed, the DM economies account for 60% of emerging market (EM) exports, so as their real import growth accelerates, EM exports are rebounding. What’s more, an improving EM outlook reduces DM disinflationary pressures.

How sustainable is this recovery? Typically business cycles end with macrostability risks (price, external and financial) spiking, forcing policymakers to tighten monetary and/or fiscal policy. In this cycle, considering that emerging markets inflation and current account balances are moving toward their central banks’ comfort zones, it is unlikely that macrostability risks will surface soon. Moreover, the emerging markets now have high levels of real rate differentials vis-àvis the US, providing adequate buffers against normalization of the Federal

DEVELOPED MARKET RISK. In our view, the key risk to the global cycle is apt to come from the developed markets— most likely the US, considering that it is most advanced in the business cycle. Moreover, the US tends to have an outsized influence on the global cycle, particularly the emerging markets. While price stability features prominently in debating the monetary policy stance of any central bank, financial stability is clearly emerging as an equally important factor.

How will it play it out? For insight, we can look at history. The late ’60s saw fiscal expansion at a time of strong growth and low unemployment. In the mid ’80s, the US pursued expansionary fiscal and protectionist policies in an improving economy. We look at similarities and differences versus today, analyzing asset class performance by fiscal deficit and unemployment quartiles.

To that end, private-sector leverage has picked up modestly in the US. In fact, the household-sector balance sheet, which was the epicenter of the credit crisis, had been deleveraging until 2016’s third quarter. Moreover, the regulatory environment has been relatively credit-restrictive. Hence, we see moderate risk to financial stability. However, risks could rise, considering that monetary policy is still accommodative, and particularly so if the administration eases financial regulations. Price stability is a critical risk, too—especially since the core Personal Consumption Expenditures Index inflation rate is close to the Fed’s target and US unemployment is around the rate below which inflation could accelerate. Reflecting this, we expect the Fed to hike rates six times by year-end 2018 (see page 3). We expect other major DM central banks to take a less dovish/more hawkish stance

A link to the full report is posted in the Subscriber's Area.
The MSCI World Index broke out to new all-time highs in March and continues to extend that breakout. There is no denying that the Index is heavily weighted by the USA but it has been a generally firm period for global stock markets as economic growth figures pick up against a background where interest rates are still relatively accommodative.

Leveraging Platform Synergies to Break Adoption Barriers

Thanks to a subscriber for this heavyweight report from Deutsche Bank focusing on payments. Here is a section:

Although initial mobile payment developments were geared toward driving adoption and acceptance, focus has shifted to improving monetization. We believe Pay with Venmo remains a significant opportunity and conservatively estimate potential contribution to revenue growth in FY20 of ~3.5pts and given the higher transaction margins driven by cheaper funding sources (ACH, Balance), estimate potential EPS contribution of $0.28 in FY20. In addition, working capital loans to merchants and/or installment plans provided by PayPal, Square, and Alipay leveraging Big data offer high margin revenue opportunities. Providers are also emphasizing efforts on channels where adoption is easier as well as use cases which offer differentiated value propositions. Accordingly, we believe in-app and inbrowser will dominate mobile payments while in-store mobile payments will be predominantly focused on differentiated value propositions such as omni-channel support, order ahead, and offer/coupon redemption.

One of the big questions for every online business is how to make it easier to take people’s money. Impatience, number of clicks, creating urgency, ensuring security and insuring purchases represent important considerations that have in many respects been solved by the various providers, with software and encryption getting better all the time.

Winners and losers of the Industrial Internet

Thanks to a subscriber for this report from Deutsche Bank which may be of interest. Here is a section:

Industrial end-markets are still at the beginning of their digitalization journey
The Industrial Internet is about optimizing entire manufacturing systems, including products, processes, supply chains and business models. We estimate digitized solutions could generate c.15% annual opex savings in industrial markets by making assets more efficient. This could reduce the addressable market size for traditional manufacturers of big iron machines. However, this should translate in a market opportunity of c.$200bn for IIoT suppliers in areas like predictive maintenance or operation optimization.

IIoT strategies are as much defensive as they are offensive
Industrial companies will have to be good at software to remain successful as an increasing share of the manufacturing value chain could shift to providers of sensors, data analytics and industrial cloud architectures. For example, a key risk for the manufacturers of large pieces of equipment requiring maintenance/retrofit is that software companies specializing in analytics or 3D printing might take a growing share of the lucrative service business pie.

3 building blocks for success: Siemens and Schneider well placed
We believe successful companies in an IIoT world will combine an integrated platform of digital solutions; deep domain know-how to give context to data analytics and automation/control activities to in real-time the insights from data analysis on manufacturing processes. Siemens stands out for its comprehensive portfolio of automation and software tools but, the group faces significant digital disruption risks on servicing of its installed base. We rank Schneider and ABB highly. Both have relatively similar IIoT competencies but in different end-markets. We also estimate Schneider is running 5 years ahead of ABB in implementation of its group-wide digital platform and strategy.

China’s labour costs have been on an upward trajectory for some time and they have already lost many low cost manufacturing jobs to even cheaper locales. With more than a billion people they have an interest in enhancing productivity to ensure they retain the moniker of “workshop of the world”.

Bezos is selling $1 billion of Amazon stock a year to fund rocket venture

This article by Irene Klotz for Reuters may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

“My business model right now … for Blue Origin is I sell about $1 billion of Amazon stock a year and I use it to invest in Blue Origin," said Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) and also the owner of The Washington Post newspaper.

Ultimately, the plan is for Blue Origin to become a profitable, self-sustaining enterprise, with a long-term goal to cut the cost of space flight so that millions of people can live and work off Earth, Bezos said.

Bezos is Amazon's largest shareholder, with 80.9 million shares, according to Thomson Reuters data. At Wednesday's closing share price of $909.28, Bezos would have to sell 1,099,771 shares to meet his pledge of selling $1 billion worth of Amazon stock. Bezos' total Amazon holdings, representing a 16.95 percent stake in the company, are worth $73.54 billion at Wednesday's closing price.

For now, Kent, Washington-based Blue Origin is working toward far shorter hops - 11 minute space rides that are not fast enough to put a spaceship into orbit around Earth.

Amazon is a behemoth which has benefitted enormously from Bezos’ stewardship over the last two decades. However it must raise the eyebrows of investors when they hear he is willing to dispense with a $1 billion in stock per annum to fund what is an interesting, potentially worthwhile but ultimately an expensive vanity project.

The Mad Rush to Undo Online Privacy Rules

This article by Siva Vaidhyanathan for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Republicans in Senate and then House did the opposite this past week, voting along party lines to reverse the consumer protections. Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and other companies have long wished to leverage personal data, seeing Google and Facebook making billions from it through customized advertising revenue. Most web sites, including Bloomberg.com, track Web use in order to deliver relevant advertisements to users.

The ISP’s could not win a policy argument before the FCC, but Congress was willing to act quickly amid the flurry of big issues confronting the public in the first 100 days of the new administration.

Once President Trump signs this bill into law, as he has pledged to do as part of his assault on Obama-era regulation regardless of their value, these telecommunication companies will be able to monitor all sorts of data use and cross-reference it with a user’s location, the time of day, and even the concentration of other service users. As more commerce occurs through phones, these companies could launch payment applications that muscle out similar services from Apple or Google. That kind of consumer data is especially valuable. Then, telecommunication companies could sell ads on the locked or home screen of a phone -- something even Google and Facebook can’t do.

Beyond that, Congress is also removing regulations that made telecommunication companies responsible for the leads of valuable -- and possibly dangerous -- private information through security breaches.

I can imagine that many US citizens are not particularly happy with the move to allow internet service providers to sell our household’s browsing history. Nevertheless, if this does in fact pass into law it will afford a number of, what are otherwise considered rather staid, companies the opportunity to compete for ad revenue with the likes of Google and Facebook.

Nike Sinks After Sales Slowdown Suggests It's Losing Share

This article by Matt Townsend for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Nike Inc. tumbled the most in 19 months after third-quarter sales missed estimates, renewing concern that the long-dominant athletic brand is losing market share to Adidas AG and Under Armour Inc.

Revenue rose 5 percent to $8.43 billion, the Beaverton, Oregon-based company said after the market closed on Tuesday. Analysts estimated $8.47 billion, on average.

Under Armour and a resurgent Adidas have been grabbing market share from Nike, especially in the U.S. That’s led investors to sour on the stock, which had its first annual decline in eight years last year. And last quarter’s results only reinforced Nike’s woes as North American sales rose just 3 percent. Executives on a conference call didn’t provide much reason for optimism, either. Worldwide futures orders, excluding the effects of currency fluctuations, fell 1 percent, the first drop since 2009. Analysts had predicted a 3.4 percent gain.

Nike produces great products and has a dominant position in the apparel sector which makes it a target. With Adidas moving to a fast fashion model, Nike is under pressure to innovate and most particularly by moving to an online presence. Under Armor might be grabbing market share but it has also struggled to boost its online offering and as a customer of all three, I personally find the online shopping experience far from compelling with all their sites.

Zara Owner's Margin Shrinks to Eight-Year Low on Currencies

This article by Rodrigo Orihuela for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Inditex put greater emphasis on online expansion last year, cutting its target for new brick-and-mortar stores. The retailer is also making changes to some of its brands to gain market share, with the most recent example being February’s foray into men’s clothing by the Stradivarius brand, which has focused on women.

After starting online sales in Singapore and Malaysia this month, the company plans to add such services in Thailand and Vietnam in the next few weeks and also in India this year.

“India is a very attractive market for us,” Isla said on a conference call with analysts. This year Zara will open a 5,000 square-meter flagship store in Mumbai, which will be its largest store in the country. Inditex has 21 stores in that market.

Fast fashion is a major business but is also highly competitive and gaining access to consumers is the key to unlocking growth potential. Moving into high population countries with expanding middle classes is one solution to that challenge and expanding online is another. Creating multiple product lines in a short period of time and getting them to market instantaneously is what has allowed companies like Inditex, H&M and more recently Primark to expand globally but it’s a ruthless sector with clear winners and losers.

Email of the day - on vapes and e-cigarettes

Hope you are keeping well.

We are getting loads of orders for Vape labels at the moment and talking to other guys in our industry they are all getting the same - we are talking millions of labels. The industry is seriously expanding, at this time it appears to be multi small to medium players but there must be some serious money to be made somewhere!

The label, bottle, liquid etc. can't come to more than £1.50 so potential profit is there.
I know you've probably already had a look but thought I'd mention it!

Thank you for this insightful email. The market for e-cigarettes has been somewhat overshadowed by the hoopla surrounding the evolution of the cannabis industry in the USA. Part of the reason for this is because there has been considerable controversy about the safety of the chemicals used in the vapourising process and the fact that some of the flavours such as bubble gum appear to be directly aimed at children. That resulted in related shares initially surging but subsequently collapsing because the cost of getting new products approved by regulatory authorities surged.

Intel missed a trick when mobile phones took off. It had simply ignored the market for years, preferring instead to concentrate on desktops where it has a strong lead in what is a declining market. When mobile phone demand exploded in popularity companies like ARM Holdings and Qualcomm took the initiative and the bulk of the profits. Since the market for desktop computers is shrinking Intel can’t afford to miss out on the evolution of autonomous vehicles since it is likely to become a major destination for both chips and sensors over the next decades.

IBM thinks it's ready to turn quantum computing into an actual business

This article by Mike Murphy for Quartz may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

As it stands, IBM’s largest quantum computer has five qubits. By contrast the average laptop has hundreds of millions of bits in its processors, although the two types of computers are not directly comparable. IBM hopes, however, to continue its research with the aim of building quantum computers with roughly 50 qubits. For comparison, an IBM spokesperson told Quartz, you can simulate the computational power of a 25-qubit quantum computer on a regular laptop. At about 45 qubits, you’d need the world’s fastest supercomputers, and above 50, “you couldn’t build large enough classical computing systems to simulate that size of a quantum system.”

In IBM’s vision of the future, quantum computers could be used for discovering new drugs, securing the internet, modeling the economy, or potentially even building far more powerful artificial intelligence systems—all sorts of exceedingly complicated tasks. One area the company is looking at right now is in chemistry, attempting to simulate what’s going on in a molecule. “Even for simple molecules like caffeine, the number of quantum states in the molecule can be astoundingly large,” the spokesperson said, “so large that all the conventional computing memory and processing power scientists could ever build could not handle the problem.”

When Quartz visited IBM’s quantum computing lab in Yorktown Heights in 2015, the work being done was viewed as fundamental—research for the sake of research—rather than anything tied to specific business goals. But then again, so was the research that has since led to the creation of Watson. Originally conceived of to take on the question-as-answers gameshow of Jeopardy!, which researchers saw as a “unique and compelling AI question,” Watson has become a set of machine-learning and AI services that IBM sells, and intends to invest $1 billion into.

IBM is still in the throes of a major transition from physical hardware manufacturing to an almost total focus on knowledge based services. Artificial intelligence (Watson), and the tools to leverage that technology (massive & fast processing power) represent the key areas of focus in what is a new era for the company.

NBCUniversal Invests $500 Million in Snap IPO Amid Digital Push

This article by Gerry Smith and Alex Barinka for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal invested $500 million in Snap’s initial public offering, expanding its reach into digital media by acquiring a stake in the $28 billion disappearing-photo service popular with millennials.

NBC Chief Executive Officer Steve Burke, in a memo to staff Friday, called the move a “significant milestone” in the media company’s partnership with Snap. The Comcast unit will be subject to a 12-month lockup period as part of its investment, meaning it can’t sell Snap’s shares for a year, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Snap surged 44 percent Thursday on their first day of trading, and gained another 12 percent Friday.

With the latest investment, NBC has now committed over $1.5 billion to digital businesses in the last 18 months, including two separate $200 million investments in BuzzFeed, and a $200 million investment in Vox Media, the online publisher of the Verge, Eater and Recode.

Last summer, NBC produced a Snapchat channel featuring Olympic content run by BuzzFeed, which generated over two billion views, Burke said in the memo. With the Snap investment, NBC will expand its partnership with the social-media network and BuzzFeed for the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea, and launch more shows with additional NBC brands in the coming weeks, he said.

Snap Inc. is another major venue for social media and particularly for the mid-teen to mid-20s demographic. One of the slides from the above report from Torsten Slok highlights the fact that the 26-year old demographic is the single largest in the USA so it is important both from a size and spending perspective which is why there is such interest in Snapchat from companies like NBC.

Wal-Mart launches new front in U.S. price war, targets Aldi in grocery aisle

This article from Reuters may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

The big box retailer also held meetings last week in Bentonville, Arkansas with food and consumer products vendors, including Procter & Gamble (PG.N), Unilever PLC (ULVR.L), Conagra Brands Inc (CAG.N), and demanded they reduce the cost they charge the retailer by 15 percent, sources said.

Wal-Mart also said it expects suppliers to help the company beat rivals on head-to-head pricing 80 percent of the time, these vendor sources said. The wide-ranging meeting with suppliers - where Wal-Mart discussed other topics - was also attended by Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) and Kraft Heinz Co (KHC.O), among others, sources told Reuters. The consumer goods companies did not respond to Reuters requests seeking comment.

These Wal-Mart moves signal a new front in the price war for U.S. shoppers, as the pioneer of everyday low pricing seeks to regain its competitive pricing advantage in traditional retailing.
For more than a year, Wal-Mart said it is investing in price while not sharing specifics. When asked by Reuters about the test and demands on grocery suppliers, Wal-Mart spokesman Lorenzo Lopez said the company is "not in a position to share our strategy for competitive reasons."

Germany-based discount grocer Aldi is one of the relatively new rivals quickly gaining market share in the hotly competitive grocery sector, which already boasts Kroger, Albertsons Cos Inc and Publix Super Markets as stiff competitors on price. A second Germany-based discount grocer, Lidl, is planning to enter the U.S. market this year, and together the German discounters pose a serious threat to Wal-Mart's U.S. grocery business.

Wal-Mart is investing heavily to take on Amazon in the online arena but faces attacks on its home turf of low cost retailing from interlopers like Aldi and Lidl which it has little choice but to outbid for custom. With progressively more competition in the consumer sector major producers of packaged goods are likely to come under increasing pressure to trim margins. That suggests they will invest even more heavily in technology and branding to protect their market shares.

Mondelez, Kellogg, et al -- Let the Deal Frenzy Begin

This article by Brooke Sutherland and Gillian Tan for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

The buyout firm's typical playbook has been to target companies with weak margins and then slash costs like crazy to boost profitability. But even a cost-cutter extraordinaire like 3G needs to eventually find revenue growth. Sale gains at Unilever's personal-care business slowed in the most recent quarter, but that industry is certainly growing faster than the staid cereal and sandwich-spreads markets.

The bid may fail. Unilever has rejected Kraft Heinz's offer and at least one analyst is bashing the idea, calling it a "sloppy" combination with questionable logic. There may also be antitrust pushback. But it's hard to see 3G going back to hunting for slow-growth food brands after this. It clearly has its eyes on a different sort of prize. That should be a wake-up call for packaged-food investors who may have been hoping for salvation via 3G and Warren Buffett, the firm's dealmaking billionaire sidekick.

Would-be 3G targets Kellogg, Mondelez, Campbell Soup and General Mills have all implemented some form of zero-based budgeting -- one of the buyout firm's favorite tools whereby every expense has to be justified each year -- as well as other productivity self-help efforts such as shedding lower-margin and non-core assets. Kellogg is targeting an operating margin of nearly 18 percent by 2018, while Mondelez is aiming to cut $3 billion in costs. Campbell on Friday upsized its cost-savings target to $450 million by fiscal 2020, while General Mills says its on track to drive down expenses by $880 million with its margin-management and efficiency plans.

Interest rates are low, but rising, so the window for attractive borrowing costs with which to fund takeovers is closing. On the flip side the prospect of synchronised global fiscal stimulus is improving so there is ample scope for the market for global demand for consumer staples to continue to increase. Therefore the rationale for takeovers now, despite the relatively high price tag is still attractive.

Email of the day on protectionism representing a headwind for global companies

This is the second article I’ve seen the Economist run focusing on the threat to big global companies represented by protectionism so they certainly have an axe to grind. It’s funny because I was just off a long overnight flight the last time I wrote about this topic so let me try to do a better job this time after a 16-hour flight to Dubai.

Reckitt Has a $16.6 Billion Way of Fending Off Boredom

This article by Chris Hughes and Andrea Felsted for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Infant nutrition is a new area for Reckitt. The company’s traditional strengths were once in household products. Think stuff you put on the floor rather than stuff you pop in the mouth. Through a series of takeovers, consumer healthcare has become an important part of Reckitt’s business -- its brands include Strepsils and Nurofen. Baby formula is another new departure and will put Reckitt in head-on competition with formidable rivals like Nestle SA and Danone SA.

Believing this is a good move means believing the growth rate for infant nutrition will be much faster than Reckitt’s existing markets. Perhaps it will. While growth has stuttered in recent years, it is poised to rebound, according to estimates from Euromonitor International, a research firm.

The lack of overlap with Reckitt's businesses means cost savings are relatively low given the size of the deal – just 200 million pounds ($250 million) annually after three years. As a result, it will take as long as five years for the returns to cover the threshold 7 percent to 8 percent cost of capital.
That’s a long time to wait.

Some investors have been concerned about the amount of debt being taken on to fund this all-cash transaction: net debt will initially be about four times the companies' combined Ebitda in 2017. That concern is valid, but it shouldn't be overdone: credit ratings companies have barely blinked and leverage should fall quickly from that level.

Reckitt has done deals well in the past and probably needs one to regain momentum. Fourth-quarter sales were disappointing, with like-for-like sales growing a measly 1 percent. Guidance for growth this year is lower than analysts hoped.

Machines Can Replace Millions of Bureaucrats

This article by Leonid Bershidsky for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

In some countries, some of the people in these jobs -- such as postal employees -- are public sector workers. But government clerks who do predictable, rule-based, often mechanical work also are in danger of displacement by machines. In a recent collaboration with Deloitte U.K., Profs. Osborne and Frey estimated that about a quarter of public sector workers are employed in administrative and operative roles which have a high probability of automation. In the U.K., they estimated some 861,000 such jobs could be eliminated by 2030, creating 17 billion pounds ($21.4 billion) in savings for the taxpayer.

These would include people like underground train operators -- but mainly local government paper pushers.

This week, Reform, the London-based think tank dedicated to improving public service efficiency, published a paper on automating the public sector. It applied methodology developed by Osborne and Frey to the U.K.'s central government departments and calculated that almost 132,000 workers could be replaced by machines in the next 10 to 15 years, using currently known automation methods. Only 20 percent of government employees do strategic, cognitive work that requires human thinking -- at least for now, while artificial intelligence is as imperfect as it is. Most of the rest are what the Reform report calls the "frozen middle" -- levels of hierarchy where bureaucrats won't budge without approval from above.

Almost all British government departments have 10 employee grades or more. The department for environment, food and rural affairs has 13. Most of the middle-level tasks are routine and rigidly regulated and motivation is low: Only 38 percent of middle-level bureaucrats say they feel good about what they do.

In the U.K., the average civil servant takes 8 sick days a year, while a private sector worker takes 5. In the last two decades public sector spending rose by an average 3.1 percent a year, about 16 times faster than productivity.

The majority of commentary is focusing on the how, what and when of Brexit but there also needs to be some thought for how the UK is going to enhance its competitive position in a post EU world. Tax structures, trade deals and deregulation all need to be high on the agenda but so does limiting needless spending in government.

Why Hollywood As We Know It Is Already Over

This article from Vanity Fair may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

When Netflix started creating its own content, in 2013, it shook the industry. The scariest part for entertainment executives wasn’t simply that Netflix was shooting and bankrolling TV and film projects, essentially rendering irrelevant the line between the two. (Indeed, what’s a movie without a theater? Or a show that comes available in a set of a dozen episodes?) The real threat was that Netflix was doing it all with the power of computing. Soon after House of Cards’ remarkable debut, the late David Carr presciently noted in the Times, “The spooky part . . . ? Executives at the company knew it would be a hit before anyone shouted ‘action.’ Big bets are now being informed by Big Data.”

Carr’s point underscores a larger, more significant trend. Netflix is competing not so much with the established Hollywood infrastructure as with its real nemeses: Facebook, Apple, Google (the parent company of YouTube), and others. There was a time not long ago when technology companies appeared to stay in their lanes, so to speak: Apple made computers; Google engineered search; Microsoft focused on office software. It was all genial enough that the C.E.O. of one tech giant could sit on the board of another, as Google’s Eric Schmidt did at Apple.

These days, however, all the major tech companies are competing viciously for the same thing: your attention. Four years after the debut of House of Cards, Netflix, which earned an astounding 54 Emmy nominations in 2016, is spending $6 billion a year on original content. Amazon isn’t far behind. Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat are all experimenting with original content of their own. Microsoft owns one of the most profitable products in your living room, the Xbox, a gaming platform that is also a hub for TV, film, and social media. As The Hollywood Reporter noted this year, traditional TV executives are petrified that Netflix and its ilk will continue to pour money into original shows and films and continue to lap up the small puddle of creative talent in the industry. In July, at a meeting of the Television Critics Association in Beverly Hills, FX Networks’ president, John Landgraf, said, “I think it would be bad for storytellers in general if one company was able to seize a 40, 50, 60 percent share in storytelling.”

The march of technology enabled content creation is undeniable and irreversible. The simple reason from a business perspective is that relying on human beings to be individually creative is fraught with uncertainty, ambiguity and time management issues. Computers on the other hand excel at getting the job done on time and within budget. The challenge has always been to try and teach computers how to be creative.

The latest "nightmare inducing" Boston Dynamics robots

Boston Dynamics was an aspiring defence contractor when it was acquired by Google. Since Google’s long held mantra is to do no evil that pretty much precluded the company from selling robots that might one day be designed to kill people. The problem is that it’s hard to design robots to displace manual labour outside of strictly controlled environments. The company is making rapid strides in that field but the primary growth avenue is in places where humans would be in danger, not least from other humans. That is at least part of the reason Alphabet is looking for a buyer for the company.

China's Consumers Greet Year of the Rooster with Bling Splurge

This article by Bruce Einhorn and Daniela Wei for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Retail sales rose 10.9 percent in December from a year earlier, the best monthly result in 12 months. Chinese imports of Swiss watches are up after falling for seven consecutive months through July, rising 7.9 percent in November from a year earlier. Led by its best-selling Macan SUV, Porsche had a 12 percent sales increase in 2016. Tiffany on Jan. 17 reported “strong growth” in China. On Jan. 19, Luca Marotta, chief financial officer of Rémy Cointreau, said the outlook for the Chinese New Year was “very, very positive.” Xi hasn’t ended his anticorruption drive, but its chilling effect on spending is easing. “A rebound across all luxury categories is now in progress,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Deborah Aitken wrote on Jan. 9.

During the Lunar New Year holiday, millions of Chinese will travel and shop at home and overseas. Bookings for international air travel made in December for Chinese New Year rose 9.8 percent from the previous year, according to ForwardKeys, an analyst of tourism data. Mainland tourist arrivals in the gambling hub of Macau jumped 7.8 percent in December, the largest increase since February 2015. Chinese consumers “are still very confident,” says Amrita Banta, managing director of Agility Research & Strategy, a consulting firm focusing on the affluent.

In Macau, tourist arrivals from mainland China for the first three days of the holiday period increased 9.1 percent to 234,000 compared to Chinese New Year in 2016, the Macau Government Tourism Office reported on its website Thursday.

Yet they may not be prepared to spend as much. Rather than purchase expensive items as gifts, Chinese are buying more for personal use, says Bruno Lannes, a Bain partner in Shanghai.

The strong weakness of the Yuan might currently be offering a tailwind for luxury goods companies since consumers have an incentive to buy now rather than pay more later. Additionally the potential for stronger economic growth and the knock-on effect that would have on consumer spending may be an additional factor in the outperformance of luxury goods’ stocks.

FANG was so 2015

Remember 2015 when the F.A.N.G, stocks were all the rage and media pundits were falling over themselves to tell us how you had to own them if you were to have any chance of outperforming the major indices. 2016 was predictably a tamer year for those shares with some spending much of their time consolidating 2015’s powerful gain. However with Netflix making headlines today on successfully boosting subscribers, following an international expansion, I thought it might be worthwhile to revisit this acronym.

The FTSE-100

The UK’s largest cap index is in the process of completing a 16-year range by breaking on the upside. The Index has rallied for six consecutive weeks, hit new all-time highs last week and improved on that performance this week. Prior to this breakout it had spent three years ranging below, but in the region of, its previous peaks. While a short-term overbought condition is evident that is consistent with what is to be expected from a major breakout.

The bizarre business of intentional product failure: planned obsolescence

This article from reportsfromearth.com may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Today built-in obsolescence is used in many different products. There is, however, the potential backlash of consumers who learn that the manufacturer intentionally make the product obsolete faster. Such consumers might turn to an alternative producer (if any exists) that offers a more durable alternative. In other words, this nasty strategy is not available for small companies who would only lose customers.

Given today’s tremendous increase of international corporate power and severely reduced competition, planned obsolescence has become an attractive possibility for products than ever in human history.

Built-in obsolescence was already used in the 1920s and 1930s when global mass production became possible and rigorously optimized.

I have to have my car smog tested soon and coincidentally the check engine light came on just ahead of when the test was due. In talks with the chaps at the dealership and with other customers while I was waiting the scale of obsolescence by design is quite astounding.

For example, one of the technicians recounted how he bought a manufacturer’s original part for his Audi Q7 on eBay. He thought he had gotten a wonderful deal only to find that Audi’s computers will not code any part that is more than three years old; even if it is unused, one of their own and appropriate for the car in the question.

How One Huge American Retailer Ignored the Internet and Won

This article by Kim Bhasin and Lindsey Rupp for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

But don’t expect a trend heading back in time. This is a difficult system to replicate, said Simeon Siegel, an analyst at Instinet. TJX boasts a wide net of inventory buyers who find small batches of desirable clothing, then make a small bet on those goods. This is unlike the traditional department store model, where buyers look at runway trends and make large orders of a few items, hoping that they’ll be the winner for the season.

“You’re buying closed-out product and you’re buying samples,” said Siegel. “You have to be very attuned to the numbers and very attuned to the fashion. The vendor base that you need to be plugged into and the intelligence that goes into buying the product is the most important asset they have. You need to find the most compelling stuff.”

When stores like T.J. Maxx do it right, they leave their shoppers filled with feelings of adventure and serendipity, says Jordan Rost, vice president of consumer insights at Nielsen, a research firm. Even an unsuccessful trip to a discount store can reinforce the thrill of the hunt. The instincts driving customers into parking lots is similar to those shopping online, Rost says. They’re searching for deals and the best item to fill some broad want or need without a target in mind.

As shoppers across generations and demographics become more focused on value than ever before, the excitement of finding something on sale has an even broader appeal. Millennials who grew up relying on e-commerce for all their needs are coming through the doors, too.

“Younger consumers are really open to that kind of open- minded approach to shopping, not necessarily coming in with a specific brand or product in mind,” says Rost. “Discovery is part of the experience.”

Retail is anything but simple however there would appear to be three primary business models. A business can compete on price, convenience or exclusivity. Amazon has mastered convenience, TJX competes on price while luxury brands offer exclusivity. In an increasingly connected world it is possible for all three business models to survive but it is hard to excel at more than one.

Email of the day on luxury goods companies

Hello I’ve noted that high level luxury looks pretty bad, but medium level luxury have interesting graphs. Tods Safilo and Luxottica seem to be basing, Tods is high quality but not flashy for example

Piquadro has stopped going down IT0004240443

Ferragamo I can’t figure out the graph yet but it is to watch as well

Yoox looks bad to me, the site is awful compared to mytheresa.com

LVMh has broken out too it seems

I’m asking because I thought that with the dollar so strong , Asians would lower consumption, buy maybe they are buying less Prada and more sober brands I haven’t figured it out yet I read Dolce and Gabbana are going badly

Thank you for this thoughtful email and I think it is the right time to be looking at some of Italy’s exporters rather than focusing on the melodrama of politics which is likely to remain tortuous for the foreseeable future. A weaker Euro, or even the remote near-term possibility of a new Florin, both represent bullish potential outcomes for nominal Italian share prices.

Ford leads automakers in patents for 2016

This article by Greg Gardner for Detroit Free Press may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

We are living the innovation mind-set in all parts of our business across the globe,” Nair said in a news release. “Our employees are delivering exciting new technologies for our customers at record levels.

The Dearborn automaker was granted 1,700 more patents in other countries, bringing the total to more than 3,100 patents granted worldwide this year.

One of those patents was granted to engineers Tony Lockwood and Joe Stanek for an invention that equips autonomous vehicles with drones.

The system deploys a drone from an autonomous vehicle to map the surrounding area beyond what vehicle sensors can see. Passengers can control the drone using the car’s infotainment or navigation system.

Just about all car companies are exploring the autonomous vehicle market while at the same time they are investing in electric vehicles. After all, software is a lot cheaper to develop than hardware.
This week Apple also had to lay out for regulators some of what it has planned for the transportation market. Here is a section from a story from USA Today:

"The company is investing heavily in the study of machine learning and automation, and is excited about the potential of automated systems in many areas, including transportation," Kenner wrote in the letter of Apple's ambitions.

Kenner said Apple supports a proposal that companies share "de-identified" data from crashes or near-misses to help improve self-driving technology, but warns the policy must take consumers' privacy into account.

"Data sharing should not come at the cost of privacy," said Kenner. "Apple believes that companies should invest the resources necessary to protect individuals’ fundamental right to privacy."

As Schultz Steps Down, Next Starbucks CEO Brings Tech Savvy

This article by Leslie Patton for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Starbucks’ digital and technology prowess has put it ahead of its peers, allowing it to serve more customers faster. Same- store sales rose 5 percent in the Americas region in the most recent quarter. Mobile payments accounted for about 25 percent of U.S. transactions in that period.

Starbucks built on its tech leadership with an order-ahead feature, which lets customers select and pay for drinks in advance. They then can pick up the beverages at a shop without waiting in line.

Since Johnson became operating chief, Starbucks has rolled out mobile ordering across the U.S. and even tested delivery.

The Seattle-based company also is boosting spending on digital ventures, including taking its app and rewards platform to countries such as China.

Though shares of Starbucks tumbled immediately after the announcement, they recovered some of that ground during extended trading. As of 9:53 a.m. in New York on Friday, the stock was down 2.4 percent to $57.11

Starbucks sells coffee and snacks, technology might ensure the lines are shorter but unless it has ambitions on selling that technology to a wider market the business is unlikely to change much. Losing Schulz as a figurehead is a blow and investors are likely to want to see improving sales if the new CEO is to be given the benefit of the doubt.

How Apple Lost China to Two Unknown Local Smartphone Makers

This article from Bloomberg News may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

“Oppo and Vivo are willing to share their profit with local sales. The reward was an extremely active and loyal nationwide sales network,” said Jin Di, an IDC analyst based in Beijing. While they declined to detail their subsidy program, she estimates the two were the top spenders in the past year. “They’re doing something different -- they do local marketing.”

China had for years driven Apple’s and Samsung’s growth. The U.S. company generated almost $59 billion of sales from the region in fiscal 2015, which was more than double the level just two years earlier. During that time its shares surged more than 60 percent. At its peak, Greater China yielded almost 30 percent of its revenue and Apple was neck-and-neck with Xiaomi for the mantle of market leader as users clamored for the larger iPhone 6 models. Even as the domestic economy began to sputter, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook spent a good chunk of an earnings call last year talking up the country’s promise, saying Apple’s investing there “for the decades ahead.”

Mobile devices is an increasingly competitive market. The speed with which new companies seem to come and go is alarming from an investors’ perspective because no sooner does one seem to have conquered the world than they are being supplanted by an even more revolutionary start up.

Holiday Price War Heats Up as Wal-Mart, Target Chase Amazon

This article by Lindsey Rupp and Sarah Very for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

“With the lines between traditional brick and mortar and e-commerce continuing to blur, the need to make a big splash during large retail events like Black Friday is significant,” Traci Gregorski, senior vice president of marketing at Market Track, said in an e-mailed statement. “The ease of comparison shopping across channels is creating a situation that puts a definitive advantage in the consumers’ hands.”

Wal-Mart and others also are steering customers toward online deals, rather than just physical stores. While the chain still offers Black Friday specials at its supercenters, the day marks the beginning of a streak of online promotions called “Cyber Week.” Wal-Mart has tripled its e-commerce selection to 23 million products this year, aiming to better compete with Amazon. The world’s largest retailer said in a statement Friday that Thanksgiving was one of its top online-shopping days this year and that about 70 percent of the traffic to its website came from mobile devices.

Target, meanwhile, is offering 15 percent off almost everything in its stores and website for two days: Sunday and Monday. The aggressive discounts come at a cost. When Target slashed prices last holiday season, its profit margin slipped to 27.9 percent from 28.5 percent.

Retail is becoming increasingly competitive but online only companies like Amazon have a distinct advantage relative to those maintaining large brick and mortar locations. Nevertheless, the benefit of a large physical location network is brand awareness; meaning companies have to work less hard to create an online shopping footprint. High competition however is likely to ensure margins continue to compress.

Facebook expanded its mobile ads business to Instagram, its photo-sharing application, which has started to contribute to the growth. While the company doesn’t break out sales, Instagram’s advertising revenue is rising faster than for Facebook’s main product, Wehner said in an interview. Still, Facebook’s main app was the bigger contributor to the sales increase, he said.

Even if Facebook’s sales gains start to slow by the middle of next year, Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has plenty of other levers he can pull to make money. In addition to Instagram, the company has two chat apps, Messenger and WhatsApp, with more than 1 billion users each. Facebook is testing models for revenue from the properties, such as letting users talk to businesses to book trips or send flowers.

Meanwhile, Zuckerberg is changing the nature of the Facebook app to focus more on video.

“In most social apps today, a text box is still the default way we share,” Zuckerberg said. “Soon, we believe a camera will be the main way that we share.”

Facebook has defied the expectations of many people, myself included, to become a genuinely innovative company that has made smart acquisitions to dominate the social media sector. Like Google/Alphabet, it might do many other things but its financial health is reliant on advertising, so monetising the active young user base of Instagram has to be high on their list of priorities.

Chip Makers Cut Deals as Cars Get Smarter

This article from the Wall Street Journal may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Ford Motor Co., BMW AG and others have said they would have self-driving cars on the road in the next few years, while Tesla Motors has a semiautonomous system already on the road. Tesla last week began shipping vehicles that include hardware that could one day be empowered by software, which must be validated and approved by regulators, to operate in a fully autonomous mode. Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk aims to demonstrate fully autonomous cross-country drive by the end of next year.

Analog Devices Inc. cited auto applications as a key motivation in a deal announced in July to buy Linear Technology Corp. in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $14.8 billion. NXP became the top auto chip supplier by striking a deal valued at nearly $12 billion last year to buy Freescale Semiconductor Inc.

But the market for years has been fragmented among many suppliers with different specialties competing on price. Where an iPhone has one central chip to power its computing functions, many parts of cars have long used separate chips—a situation that could become even more complex as car makers add more features for safety and other purposes.

“Those will all require more processing capability and likely will be supplied by different suppliers who are not exactly working together,” said Dave Sullivan, an automotive industry analyst at AutoPacific, in an interview.

The push toward autonomous driving is a countervailing force, requiring more powerful chips and software that can analyze feeds from cameras, radar and other sensors using technologies such as deep learning. Tesla Motors Inc. has moved toward a central computing system, announcing last week it had picked chip maker Nvidia Corp. as part of the self-driving hardware it has vowed to include in all its new vehicles.

There is not going to be a single day when someone turns a switch and the global vehicle fleet becomes autonomous. Rather it is going to happen in a piecemeal fashion and regulators will hopefully pay attention to what is happening in other parts of the world to come up with an idea of best practice.

If we set aside the timeline for when cars are likely to be fully autonomous for a moment, the big question for auto manufacturers is still how to make new cars attractive enough to encourage people to pay up but not so attractive that they will cannibalise next year’s sales. The answer would appear to offer more added extras in the form of electronics and connectivity regardless of whether cars are autonomous.

Tesla Earnings: The Moment of Truth

This article by Stephen Russolillo for The Wall Street Journal may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Using generally accepted accounting principles, Tesla is expected to log a loss of 59 cents a share. Since going public in 2010, Tesla only has reported one profitable quarter under this basis. That came in 2013, when the stock surged from the mid-$30s to nearly $200. It has been volatile ever since, currently still trading around $200 with a silly valuation.

Whether or not the quarter is profitable, investors will want to hear about future production, which they are counting on to justify Tesla’s share price. Earlier this month, Tesla reported third-quarter deliveries of its vehicles more than doubled from a year earlier to 24,500. It also reiterated its forecast earlier this month that it would produce 50,000 vehicles in the second half of 2016. And it maintains it will deliver 500,000 cars by 2018, thanks to the Model 3 mass-market sedan.

But Tesla has repeatedly overpromised and underdelivered. In the past five years, Tesla has failed to meet more than 20 of Mr. Musk’s projections, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal.

This is a big week for earnings with Apple yesterday, Tesla today, Alphabet tomorrow and Amazon on Friday. Tesla makes cars people aspire to own and want to be seen driving. That’s something not many car manufacturers can brag about. However there is nothing easy about starting a car company from scratch even if electrc cars have nearly two thirds fewer parts than conventional vehicles.

Email of the day on virtual reality and augmented reality

The Gartner curve you posted indicates that Augmented Reality and VR are approaching or in 'payback' phase. If so this ETF could be a good investment vehicle. Purefunds Video Game Technology ETF (GAMR) Can you please add it to the Chart Library. Grateful thanks

Thank you for this suggestion and I agree that the video gaming sector is a growth engine quite apart from the evolution of virtual and augmented reality gaming. The question is no longer about whether people will play games, regardless of gender, age or ethnicity, but rather which will be the most effective platforms to deliver the media. Right now mobile apps are by far the most popular because everyone has a phone.

Email of the day on the influence of mega-caps on the performance of the S&P 500:

Given that (apparently) the FANGS account for about 50% of the total gains in the S&P500 over the last 2 years, it would be interesting to see what a chart of the S&P500 minus the FANGS would look like. Does such a chart exist?

My gut feel is that the chart would look more like the Dow Jones Industrial Index

Thank you for raising this important question. I don’t have a chart that removes Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook from the performance of the overall index but I did create this spreadsheet ranking the constituents of the Index by market cap.

The app produces a hypothesis regarding treatment options that a human doctor edits and sends to the patient. The self-learning bot will continue to sponge up information and improve conversation as time goes on.

Ray Kurzweil made clear in his talk at the ExMed conference earlier this week that “life begins at a billion impressions” when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI). In other words if you want to teach a computer how to recognise an image you need to feed it a billion examples before it can make the leap to recognition.

Email of the day on South Korea

Thank you for this question and I displayed a number of long-term charts in the big picture long-term audio / video on Friday. A number of Asian markets are in very long-term ranges and some are testing their long-term highs so I agree it is a good time to ask a question whether they represent explosions waiting to happen now or perhaps later?

Follow Your Nose

Thanks to a subscriber for this interesting report from Deutsche Bank. Here is a section:

Key Themes to Drive Industry Shift
Minimally Invasive Treatment is Large and Underpenetrated: Balloon sinus dilation (BSD) is a minimally invasive alternative to functional endoscopic sinus surgery (FESS). The procedure was introduced in 2005, but remains underpenetrated (we estimate 20% today). We view penetration increasing to 26% in 2021 lead primarily by continued economic and clinical data.

From the Operating Room to the Physician’s Office: We believe an increasing number of chronic sinusitis procedures will shift from the operating room to the physician’s office setting moving forward. This shift provides benefits to all: patients, physicians, and payors.

Opportunities for Technologies that Lower Costs and Improve Outcomes
New technologies that further enable minimally invasive procedures and the shift to physician’s office based care are also garnering more attention. Medical supplies and devices companies have taken note with recent launches of more compact navigation systems, steroid eluting stents, and more compact surgical tools and technologies.

Technology is evolving at a pace that is difficult for many people to keep up. That is the challenge of living in a time where exponential growth in understanding innovation, technology and science are competing and complimenting one another. I’m heading to San Diego this afternoon for Singularity University’s ExMed conference where the primary topic of conversation will be what the future holds for the healthcare sector. I look forward to sharing any insights I gain with you when I get back.

Wal-Mart's next move against Amazon: More warehouses, faster shipping

This article from Reuters may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

The world's largest retailer is now on track to double the number of giant warehouses dedicated to online sales to 10 by the end of 2016, according to Justen Traweek, vice-president of e-commerce supply chain and fulfillment.

That pace is faster than the 8 large warehouses that industry consultants expected Wal-Mart to build by the end of 2017.

At the same time, Wal-Mart in the last year has installed new technology such as automated product sorting and improved item tracking that for the first time puts them on par with Amazon's robot-staffed facilities, according to supply-chain consultants.

"We have doubled our capacity in the last twelve months and that allows us to ship to a majority of the U.S. population in one day," Traweek said.

Wal-Mart is holding its annual investor day on Thursday when, among other topics, it is expected to update on the progress it has made in its e-commerce business.

Wal-Mart, which has about 4,600 stores in the United States and over 6,000 worldwide, has been investing in e-commerce for 15 years, but it still lags far behind Amazon.

"These additions definitely give Wal-Mart the opportunity to compete better than other companies going head-to-head with Amazon," said Steve Osburn, director of supply chain with consultancy Kurt Salmon, referring to the likes of Target (TGT.N) and others. "Having said that, choosing to race with Amazon is different than catching up with them."

As the number 1 online venue for shoppers Amazon is the obvious target for aspirational brick and mortar retailers who wish to leverage their own customer bases. Amazon is no longer concentrating on being the cheapest venue, having succeeded in developing a large loyal following of consumers by offering outstanding quibble free customer service. Wal-Mart on the other hand will have to deal with its caché of appealing to the lower income consumer if it wants to compete with Amazon Prime.

D-Wave Systems previews 2000-qubit quantum processor

This press release from D-Wave Systems may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

“As the only company to have developed and commercialized a scalable quantum computer, we’re continuing our record of rapid increases in the power of our systems, now up to 2000 qubits. Our growing user base provides real world experience that helps us design features and capabilities that provide quantifiable benefits,” said Jeremy Hilton, senior vice president, Systems at D-Wave. “A good example of this is giving users the ability to tune the quantum algorithm to improve application performance."

“Our focus is on delivering quantum technology for customers in the real world,” said Vern Brownell, D-Wave’s CEO. “As we scale our processors, we’re adding features and capabilities that give users new ways to solve problems. These new features can enable machine learning applications that we believe are not available on classical systems. We are also developing software tools and training the first generation of quantum programmers, which will push forward the development of practical commercial applications for quantum systems.

D-Wave Systems has received investment from companies like Google and Lockheed Martin as well as NASA but its press releases have tended to trend towards exaggeration. There is considerable debate about the efficacy of the solutions they propose and if one is keeping up with the news there is obviously a chasm between the size of the computers D-Wave claims to be producing and those created by other more conservative companies.

Iger's Legacy at Stake in Possible Disney Deal for Twitter

This article by Christopher Palmeri for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

The 65-year-old chairman and chief executive officer of Walt Disney Co. is scheduled to retire in June 2018. He’s already achieved a number of milestones, including Disney’s revival of the “Star Wars” film series and the opening in June of the company’s $5.5 billion Shanghai resort. But one issue bedevils him and most other media executives: how to transition to a world where mobile devices, not TV screens, dominate news and entertainment.

The question underscores Disney’s interest in Twitter Inc. The Burbank, California-based company has hired an investment bank to advise on a possible Twitter merger, Bloomberg News reported Monday. A deal would unite the world’s largest entertainment company, the home of ABC, ESPN and Mickey Mouse, with the technology pioneer that created the 140-character tweet. It could let Iger leave knowing he’s given Disney a big presence in digital media and advertising.

“That would be his final stamp on Disney,” said Tim Galpin, a professor of management at Colorado State University and co- author of “The Complete Guide to Mergers and Acquisitions.” “If he could get that behind him, he could walk off with a final major success story.”

Twitter, whose co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey sits on the Disney board, has already been dipping his toes in live sports, airing National Football League’s night games. That’s a business that Disney, the parent of the leading sports TV network ESPN, knows well and that clearly intrigues Iger

The acquisition and successful reboot of Star Wars coupled with the opening of the Shanghai resort were major successes for Disney. However that does not obscure the fact that the company’s broadcasting and cable divisions represent almost half of revenues and face challenges from interlopers like Netflix, Hulu and YouTube. These challenges have yet to be addressed.

U.S. Stocks Rise on Apple Rally as Oil Advances; Bonds Mixed

This article by Oliver Renick and Jeremy Herron for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

U.S. stocks rose from a two-month low as Apple Inc. extended a rally, while a rebound in crude boosted shares of energy producers. The selloff in longer-dated bonds eased amid data showing the American economy is on uneven footing.

The S&P 500 Index jumped as Apple pushed its four-day gain past 11 percent. The index slipped toward its 100-day moving average before pushing higher as the level held for a fourth day. Industrial production contracted more than forecast and retail sales unexpectedly slid, sending the odds for a rate increase next week below 20 percent. The dollar was little changed after initially turning lower on the sales data.

Sterling slid after the Bank of England said another rate cut this year is possible. Oil erased gains to fall back below $44 a barrel.

Equities continued to whipsaw investors after Friday’s rout jolted markets from a two-month torpor and wiped almost $2 trillion in value from stocks amid concern that central banks would deliver smaller doses of stimulus even as the global economy sputters along. Apple’s advance has buttressed U.S. equity indexes, as consumers snapped up the new iPhone model.

Apple still has the world’s largest market cap at $620 billion so its underperformance over the last year has represented a drag on the wider market. In fact the drag has been compounded by the impact Apple’s decline in sales growth has had on its suppliers.

Dairy Farmers Think Almond Milk Is Bogus But Americans Love It

This article by Leslie Patton and Lydia Mulvany for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Almond milk is boosting the nut’s popularity, too. Last year, Americans bought $890 million of the stuff, three times the amount of soy milk’s $286 million, according to IRI. By contrast, consumers bought $9.2 billion of lowfat and skim milk. Retailers have caught on to the trend. Starbucks Corp. is adding almond milk to its lineup of non-milk alternatives, which already includes coconut and soy milk. And as of last month, Dunkin’ Donuts offers it in all its stores.

Milk alternatives have faced scrutiny for not containing very many nuts or natural ingredients. WhiteWave Foods Co.’s Silk brand of almond milk, for example, also contains sugar, salt, gellan gum and sunflower lecithin.

A lawsuit filed last year against Blue Diamond Growers, which supplies Dunkin’ Donuts, said its almond milk contained just 2 percent almonds. Blue Diamond’s U.K. website confirms the product’s almond content. Water and sugar are listed as ingredients before almonds. Alicia Rockwell, a company spokeswoman, declined to comment.

Among the biggest almond-milk sellers are WhiteWave and Blue Diamond, along with retailers like Target Corp. and Aldi Inc. that have private-label brands. Niche companies are also riding the wave, like NüMoo Nut-Milks, which makes an organic, cold-milled chocolate almond milk.

Almond milk with its low fat / high protein / low glycemic index credentials tends to tick a lot of boxes for the current trend of health conscious diets. As a result it is boosting demand for the nut amidst what has already been a growth trend in Asian consumption. In a battle of marketing against regular milk it is winning and gaining market share. A clear health scare or drop in Asian demand would likely be required to check that trend.

What Samsung's Disastrous Galaxy Note 7 Recall Means for Apple

This article by Chris Nolter for TheStreet may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

The announcement of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus was "lackluster," in the view of Gartner analyst Tuong Nguyen, who expressed skepticism that the problems with Samsung's flagship smart phone will lead to an outflowing of customers to Apple.

"We've chosen our battlegrounds already," Nguyen said, suggesting that U.S. users are mostly either in the Android an iOS camps. Shifting from one to the other is "at the least annoying" and involves relearning the quirks of a new platform and accounting for apps that have been bought or downloaded.

"I feel it's more likely that the Samsung incident will push people towards other Android makers like LG more so than towards Apple," Nguyen said. Shifts to a new platform could be more pronounced in emerging markets with burgeoning middle classes who may not have been able to afford iPhones before.

The app ecosystem of various platforms represents a significant hurdle to moving from an iOS based phone to Android. That represents a major incentive for companies like Apple and Google to encourage as many programmers as possible to develop apps for their respective languages. Google’s announcement in July that it plans to fund education for up to 2 million programmers in India is a direct reflection of that theme.

IBM's Watson supercomputer creates a movie trailer

This article by Rich Hardy for Gizmag may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

But perhaps the most beguiling, and subversive, aspect of Watson's trailer was how much it de-emphasised the monstrous nature of the human/nanotech hybrid. The irony of this entire project is that we have a film where a form of AI turns violent and kills humans, but the AI tasked with making the film's trailer ends up playing down that entire facet of the narrative.

Aside from being a fun experiment in computer-generated creativity, this project also proposes a speedy alternative to a generally costly and time-consuming process. The construction of a film trailer is usually an intensive practice taking several weeks to produce, but this trailer took only 24 hours to construct, from Watson "watching" the film to a human editor delivering the final product.

Making a good film trailer is a delicate balance between art and commerce. If anything this experiment still goes to show that a strong human hand is necessary even when producing what many would determine to be a disposable advertisement. Still, I wouldn't mind getting Watson's perspective on a few sci-fi films that vilify artificial intelligence. Maybe there is a Terminator trailer on the cards that sympathizes with Skynet or a view on 2001: A Space Odyssey where HAL 9000 is the film's hero?

IBM is in the midst of redeploying its knowhow from a company that delivered hardware to one almost entirely focused on software/computing as a service and Watson represents a big part of that. Meanwhile IBM is also advancing the development of quantum computers where it already has a 5-qubit prototype that it hopes to offer third party access too shortly.

How the European Commission calculated 13bn tax bill

This article by Suzanne Lynch for the Irish Times may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Ms Vestager said on Tuesday that the commission had concluded that the splitting of Apple’s profits between the two parts of the AOE and ASI companies “did not have any factual or economic justification.”

In short, the commission has concluded that Ireland gave illegal state aid to Apple, in breach of EU law.

It will now fall to lawyers for the accused to contest this.

The refrain from Government circles has long been that the EU may not have liked the tax structures that were in place at the time when the Apple deal was struck but that does not mean that they were illegal.

It may be some years before a definitive answer on this question will be reached.

The European Commission has raised important issues for Ireland not least because without its sovereign ability to set taxation there is very little reason for such a large number of Silicon Valley’s best and brightest companies to choose the little island in the North Atlantic as their favoured destination for European headquarters.

Ports, a Sign of Altered Supply Chains

This article from the Wall Street Journal may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

“The running joke going around is that flat is the new growth,” said Jett McCandless, chief executive of transportation-technology startup project44.

Freight volumes are stagnating despite strong consumer spending, which rose for a fourth-straight month in July. The problem for traditional retailers: More of those dollars are being spent online, or on entertainment and services such as health care.

Many retailers are stuck with large amounts of unsold goods as a result, reducing their need to import more merchandise. Even after a year of attempting to slim down inventories, retailers’ ratio of inventories to sales, a measure of excess stocks, touched 1.5 in June, close to a seven-year high, according to the Census Bureau. In their most recent earnings reports, Target and Lowe’s reported inventories up more than 4% over the same period last year.

J.C. Penney is placing “slightly smaller orders…or holding back quite a bit” to reduce inventories, Mike Robbins, J.C. Penney’s executive vice president for supply chain, told investors in June. The company has reduced the size of some orders at the beginning of major shopping seasons by as much as 70%.

The focus on reducing inventories is proving to be a drag on growth because it signals that businesses are spending less, and might be pessimistic about future demand. Inventory drawdowns cut second-quarter growth by 1.26 percentage points, to just 1.1%.

Shipping lines are struggling to plan their routes as order volumes become more difficult to predict, said Niels Erich, spokesman for a group of 15 major shipping lines known as the Transpacific Stabilization Agreement. In the past, carriers could count on the peak summer months to make up for slower winter trade.

There is no doubt that the disintermediation which characterises online retail has a deflationary impact on how economic growth is measured because it inhibits the velocity of money. I do not view it as a coincidence that the Velocity of M2 has been contracting since 1997 when the internet began to have an impact on the retail sector.

The Frozen Concentrated Orange-Juice Market Has Virtually Disappeared

This article by Julie Wernau for the Wall Street Journal may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Americans drank less orange juice in 2015 than in any year since Nielsen began collecting data in 2002, as more exotic beverages like tropical smoothies and energy drinks take market share and fewer Americans sit down for breakfast.

When they do drink orange juice, they aren’t drinking it from concentrate.

Frozen concentrated orange juice was invented in Florida in the 1940s, primarily as a way to provide juice for the military, readily storable and easy to ship. But frozen juice has been losing favor for years.

Not-from-concentrate orange juice surpassed the concentrated orange-juice market in the 1980s. Now, the 1.4 million gallons of frozen concentrate that Americans drink each month pales in comparison to the 19.1 million gallons of fresh juice consumed each month, Nielsen said.

Louis Dreyfus Co. is scaling back the one citrus facility in Florida that is devoted entirely to concentrated orange juice. The commodities giant is laying off 59 of the plant’s 94 workers as its sells the operation that packs frozen concentrated orange juice into cans for retail.

Changing consumption habits where people are more concerned not only with the taste but the quality of the foods they consume are having wide ranging effects on the commodity markets. To most people frozen orange juice does not taste as good as a freshly squeezed navel or Valencia orange. However since squeezing one’s own oranges is both time consuming and expensive the vast majority of orange juice consumed comes from either concentrate or is pasteurized.

Global Equity Strategy Who sells where in 2016

Thanks to a subscriber for this heavyweight 118-page report from HSBC covering the international exposure of major companies on a global basis. Here is a section:

European equity markets are by far the most global, more than their economies, and are most exposed to Emerging Markets (EM)

US equity market is the most closed of the Developed Markets (DM), a key ingredient to the US’s relative ‘safer-haven’ status

Japanese overseas revenues have grown sharply in recent years, but are now threatened by yen strength

EM stock markets are the most closed, accounting for the bottom seven countries in our ranking
Economies are not stock markets. DM and EM have similar exports/GDP levels, but DM stock markets are twice as global

With the growth of the global consumer base we began to pay attention to large international businesses that dominate their respective sectors from about 2011. I developed the list of Autonomies by looking at data similar to that compiled in this report; using it to identify companies that have global businesses. In perusing the report veteran subscribers will no doubt be familiar with many of the names.

Registration required

Most Recent Audio: 16 March 2018

Testimonials

High quality analysis, reporting and insightfulness delivered eloquently in plain english

T.R. 20 December 2017

Its a service I have used over many many years and have grown to trust. I find the commentary and analysis provided to be a reliable guide to market action.

C.C. 09 September 2016

FTM looks at markets globally and technically; the best.

J.P. 08 September 2016

I find David's and Eoin's analysis is refreshingly different, with it's basis in crowd behaviour combined with a relatively uncomplicated use of charts.

T.K. 30 August 2016

I want to say thanks for all your interesting charts from all over the world. You both give us a fantastic wiew from around the globe! Some examples,Valeant,Kinder Morgan,Orocobre and metals. They have all recently helped me pay my expenses and more.

L.K. 27 July 2016

I have been a subscriber since the 70's.
I have grown with your service and have no hesitation in recommending your service !!!

R.D. 19 June 2016

Experience, relevant data sourcing that is not often though about, consistency using both technical and fundamental inputs, as well as the understanding of market psychology, contrarian behaviour and sentiment.

J.E. 29 May 2016

I'm a long time subscriber and very familiar with the service!

T.M. 15 April 2016

Essential chart library plus interesting thematic comment

N.B. 06 April 2016

Good product, simple as that.

D.S. 05 April 2016

I appreciate David and Eoin's insightful, level-headed commentary.

M.N. 30 March 2016

It's a very time efficient and considered source of financial information.

H.T. 16 March 2016

I have subscribed for many years. I value David's judgement highly - he has made some excellent investment calls and his commentary is often insightful. The Chart library is a particularly useful resource.

A.L. 11 March 2016

Global scope, technical analysis, Fullers verbal.

J.P. 04 February 2016

Very long time subscriber and found service helpful in not missing major trends

S.O. 20 January 2016

I have been a long term satisfied customer myself.

C.B. 11 January 2016

Informative and consistent, good overview

R.M. 06 December 2015

Excellent daily coverage of the markets. The chart library is central to my investing. The Filter function is a gem.

D.B. 02 December 2015

Happily followed for many years

J.D. 24 November 2015

Long term subscriber, very satisified with quality of service

E.M. 21 October 2015

I am an extremely satisfied subscriber. The daily audio is an indispensable part of my day, and the chart library is a very powerful and convenient tool.